BROTHERLY HATE
The two brothers stood face to face by the stables. Otto, running round for Ursula’s carriage, after the brief interview with his parents, had almost knocked up against Gerard. He started back.
“Damn you!” said Gerard. He said the hideous words with deep conviction—almost conscientiously, as if acquitting himself of a painful duty. For the last quarter of an hour, ever since he had fled from the boudoir before the approach of the betrothed pair, Gerard had been striding hither and thither, like one possessed, in the close vicinity of the stables. He was hardly aware what he said or thought. Otto had shot Beauty; Otto had estranged Helena, actuated not even by sneaking jealousy (as had first seemed probable), but by wanton ill-nature. He hated Otto. He would never look upon his hateful face again. He would hurry back to Drum.
Suddenly his elder brother stood before him, almost jostling him in a hasty recoil. All Gerard’s confusion of anger and sorrow cooled into one clear thunder-bolt.
“Damn you!” he said. There could be no doubt in his own heart or any other of his concentrated hate of the intruder. What says Tacitus? “With more than brotherly hate.” Tacitus read the inner souls of men.
From the moment when he fired the fatal shot, Otto had felt that he owed Gerard most humble and affectionate apology. Concerning the episode with Helena he was, of course, serenely ignorant. But his attitude had stiffened just now under the cruelly careless words which had fallen like a shadow across the home-bringing of the betrothed.
“Silence, Gerard,” he replied, haughtily. “No one can be more sorry than myself. If you will listen reasonably, I will try to explain—”
“No one more sorry than yourself!” burst in Gerard, his whole frame trembling with passion. “No one more sorry! You loved Beauty, I suppose? You loved Beauty better than anything else except—except—” He bit back the word “mother.” “You loved Beauty, and first drove her mad by your insane bungling, and then shot her!—shot her! Oh, my God!” The words choked him. Suddenly he grew white and calm. He advanced upon Otto.
“If only you were not my brother!” he said, in a whisper.