“But why should I?” was the demand. “The pair of you trapped me into making a fool of myself. How was I to know that everything was not all right? You and she acted as if everything were on the square. But my eyes are open now. Why, she played the outraged wife to perfection, slapped the transgressor and fled to you. Pretty good proof of what all the beach has been saying. Partners, eh?—a business partnership? Gammon my eye, that’s what it is.”
Then it was that Sheldon struck out, coolly and deliberately, with all the strength of his arm, and Tudor, caught on the jaw, fell sideways, crumpling as he did so and crushing a chair to kindling wood beneath the weight of his falling body. He pulled himself slowly to his feet, but did not offer to rush.
“Now will you fight?” Tudor said grimly.
Sheldon laughed, and for the first time with true spontaneity. The intrinsic ridiculousness of the situation was too much for his sense of humour. He made as if to repeat the blow, but Tudor, white of face, with arms hanging resistlessly at his sides, offered no defence.
“I don’t mean a fight with fists,” he said slowly. “I mean to a finish, to the death. You’re a good shot with revolver and rifle. So am I. That’s the way we’ll settle it.”
“You have gone clean mad. You are a lunatic.”
“No, I’m not,” Tudor retorted. “I’m a man in love. And once again I ask you to go outside and settle it, with any weapons you choose.”
Sheldon regarded him for the first time with genuine seriousness, wondering what strange maggots could be gnawing in his brain to drive him to such unusual conduct.
“But men don’t act this way in real life,” Sheldon remarked.
“You’ll find I’m pretty real before you’re done with me. I’m going to kill you to-day.”