“She has a good aim as a rule,” put in Christopher, too blind with fury now to realise the other’s unhinged condition, but Geoffry went on unheeding.
“But to do it in a rage, and for nothing. Just a cold-blooded attack and no warning. I can’t get over it. Anything might happen.”
His first indignant pang that Christopher had been sent on this awkward errand had died out in the stress of the moment: he was ready to appeal for sympathy, for help, or even bare comprehension in the impossible situation in which he found himself, but Christopher had nothing to bestow on him but blind, furious resentment. He longed to be quit of his service and free to give way to his own wrath.
“There was plenty of warning for anyone with eyes and sense to use them, and there was nothing cold-blooded about it whatever, as I’ve told you fifty times. If you choose to make a mountain out of a molehill you must, but I’ll not help you. I would have 282 done my best for both of you if you’d taken it decently.”
“You? What concern is it of yours?” retorted the other, stung back to his original jealousy.
“It’s my concern so far as Patricia chooses it to be,” he answered curtly. “I’m going now. You’d better write to her yourself, when you’ve decided if the risk is worth taking or not.”
“It’s my risk at least, not yours—yet awhile,” was the unguarded reply.
The young men faced each other for a moment with passions at the point of explosion. It was Christopher who recollected his position of ambassador first and turned abruptly to the door. In the hall he narrowly escaped encounter with Mrs. Leverson, Geoffry’s large and ample mother, but slipped out of a garden door on hearing the rustle of her dress. In the open air he breathed freely again and hastened to regain his motor, which he had left near the gates. Once outside Logan Park he turned the car northward along a fairly deserted high-road and drove at full pressure, until the hot passion of his heart cooled and his pulse fell into beat with the throb of the engine, and he found himself near Basingstoke. Then he turned homeward, driving with greater caution and was able to face matters in a logically sane manner.
“They won’t marry and it’s a blessed thing for both of them,” was the burden of his thoughts, though it mitigated not one bit his indignant attitude towards Geoffry. Presently he turned to his own interest in the matter.
His first idea was that he was free to claim her who was his own at once, without loss of time, but that impulse died down before a better appreciation of facts. Patricia must be left free in mind to regain possession of every faculty, that was but common fairness: also he was by no means certain at this time what response 283 she would make to his claim, and if it should be a negative his position at Marden would be difficult, and there was Aymer to consider. Quite slowly, and with no appreciable connection with the chief subject a recollection of that first journey with Peter Masters from London came to the surface of his mind, and written large across, in Peter’s own handwriting, were the words, “Aymer’s son.”