“This was a little of both. We were having a supper, about twenty of us, just before class-day. After the supper, when we were all a trifle hilarious, Slade came up behind Judd and poured some wine down his neck. Judd faced about; then Slade made a mock apology, and added an insulting speech. He was a master in that sort of thing, and while doing it he emptied his wineglass into Judd’s face. Now Judd is overweighted with a peculiar kind of Oriental pride, and also with an unfortunate temper; not a bad temper, but a sudden, unreliable, cyclonic affair, that carries the owner with it, generally faster than is necessary, and sometimes a great deal farther. Now Slade knew all this, and as he was an all-around athlete and the heavier man, there was no doubt in our minds that he meant Judd should strike out, and then he would have some fun with him.
“Well, Judd grew as black as a thundercloud, but he kept his temper. His hand shook as he wiped his face with his handkerchief and quietly turned his back upon him. Then it was that the other man made the crowning error of his life. He was just enough of a bully to misunderstand Judd’s decent behavior, and his contempt was so great for one who could accept such an indignity that he kicked him. Judd wheeled about, seized him by the throat and banged his head against the wall with a force and fury that sobered every fellow in the room. Close beside them was an open window reaching to the floor, with a low iron railing outside. Judd, half lifting him from the floor, sent him flying through this window, and over the balcony.”
“Gracious! Was he dead from the blows on his head?”
“No, but a blow awaited him outside that would have finished an ox. This window was about thirteen feet from the ground, and below it stood a granite hitching post. When Slade came down like a diver from a boat and struck head foremost against the top of this post something was sure to suffer, and the granite post is there to-day, with no signs of injury.”
“How can you speak of it in such a tone!”
“Well, I am afraid none of us had a deep affection for the victim. And then Judd was so refreshingly honest! He said he was glad Slade was dead; that the world would be better if all such men were out of it, and refused to go to the funeral or to wear the usual class mourning.”
“Which was in disgustingly bad taste!”
“Possibly, but uncommonly honest. And then it is hardly fair to judge him by our standards. He is built of foreign material, and he had received something that it was simply not in his nature to forgive.”
Their voices were drowned in the music that again filled the room. The dance over, they sauntered out into the large hall, where Flemish and Italian tapestries formed an opulent harmony with Van Koover portraits. In the air of this apartment one breathed the ancestral repose that speaks of princely origin. It was not intended, however, that this atmosphere should recall the founder of the house who, but four generations ago, was peddling knick-knacks along the Bowery.
As Miss Cabot was uncomfortably warm and suggested a cooler air he led her to the farther end of the long hall, beyond the stairs, and halted at the entrance of a conservatory.