"But you struck no blow," I said.
"That would have been fool's work. I dared not go against my own brother before the servants. Indeed, ill as I would have liked it, had you proved too much for them, I should have lent them a helping hand."
I was silent, wondering what he was driving at.
"I had this meeting in my mind," he continued. "I determined to come and see you when Otho was safe asleep."
"You are afraid of Otho," I said, drawing a bow at a venture.
"Who would not be?" he cried savagely. "Otho is as cunning as the devil. He should have been a priest. He hath all the learning of the family, and can wriggle his way like an adder. Oh, I speak plainly now! I gloried to hear you give him word for word. Even I dare not do so."
I had been summing up the nature of the man as he spoke, and thought I saw whereby I could make him unloose his tongue more freely still.
"I can see he is master here," I said. "All you have to obey every movement of his finger. You seem like children in his hands, or like dogs who have to fetch and carry at his bidding."
"He hath won the confidence of my father," he cried harshly, "and so it is 'Otho this,' and 'Otho that.'"