“Shame!” he cried, addressing indiscriminately the Doctor, Horace Pod and the universe. “Poor little thing!” he added, seizing it in his fist and carrying it to the window. When, with some difficulty and many muttered imprecations he had flung it out, “it tickled me,” he remarked gravely. “Moths flutter so in your hand.”
“Most things flutter,” remarked Brand, “when you try to get rid of them. Some of them,” he added in a significant tone, “don’t confine themselves to fluttering.”
The incident of the moth seemed to break up, more than any of the preceding interruptions, the harmony of the evening. Dr. Raughty, looking nervously at Sorio and replacing his pipe in his pocket, announced that he intended to depart. Brand Renshaw rose too and with him, Mr. Traherne.
“May I walk with you a little way?” said the priest.
The master of Oakguard stared at him blankly.
“Of course, of course,” he replied, “but I’m afraid it’ll take you out of your road.”
It was some time before they got clear of the house as Baltazar with a thousand delicate attentions to each of them and all manner of lively speeches, did his best, in the stir of their separation, to smooth over and obliterate from their minds the various little shocks that had ruffled his entertainment. They got away, however, at last and Brand and the priest, bidding the rest good night, took the road to the park. The sky as they entered the park gates was clear and starry and the dark trees of the avenue up which they walked, rose beside them in immovable stillness.
Mr. Traherne, putting his hand into the pocket of his ulster to derive courage from contact with his pet, plunged without preamble into the heart of the perilous subject.
“You may not know, Renshaw,” he said, “that Miss Herrick and her sister are leaving Dyke House and are going to live in the village. Nance has got work at Miss Pontifex’ and Linda is going to play the organ regularly for me. I believe there’s been something—lately”—he hesitated and his voice shook a little but, recovering himself with a tremendous effort, “something,” he went on, “between Linda and yourself. Now, of course, in any other case I should be very reluctant to say anything. Interference in these things is usually both impertinent and useless. But this case is quite different. The girl is a young girl. She has no parents. Her sister is herself quite young and they are both, in a sense, dependent on me as the priest of this place for all the protection I can give. I feel responsible for these girls, Renshaw, responsible for them, and no feelings of a personal kind with regard to any one,” here he squeezed Ricoletto so tightly that the rat emitted a frightened little squeal, “shall interfere with what I feel is my duty. No, hear me out, hear me out, Renshaw!” he continued hurriedly, as his companion began to speak. “The matter is one about which we need not mind being quite open. I want you, in fact, to promise me—to promise me on your word of honour—that you’ll leave this child alone. I don’t know how far things have gone between you. I can’t imagine, it would be shameful to imagine, that it has gone beyond a flirtation. But whatever it has been, it must stop now. It’s only your word of honour I want, nothing but your word of honour, and I can’t believe you’ll hesitate, as a gentleman, to give me that. You’ll give me that, won’t you, Renshaw? Just say yes and the matter’s closed.”
He removed his hand from his pocket and laid it on his companion’s wrist. Brand was sufficiently cool at that moment to remark as an interesting fact that the priest was trembling. Not only was he trembling but as he removed his hat to give further solemnity to his appeal, large drops of perspiration, known only to himself, for darkness dimmed his face, trickled down into his eyes. Brand quietly freed himself and moved back a step.