"Don't be a fool, Octavius Buzzby,"—she broke in upon him coldly, a world of scornful pity in her voice,—"you mean well, but you're a fool to think that at my time of life I'm going to impoverish myself and my estate for Champney Googe. You've had your pains for nothing. Let him take his punishment like any other man—he's no better, no worse; it's the fault of his bringing up; Aurora has only herself to thank."
Octavius took a step forward. By a powerful effort he restrained himself from shaking his fist in her face. He spoke under his breath:
"You leave Aurora's name out of this, Mrs. Champney, or I'll say things that you'll be sorry to hear." His anger was roused to white heat and he dared not trust himself to say more.
She laughed out loud—the forced, mocking laugh of a miserable old age. "I knew from the first Aurora Googe was at the bottom of this—"
"She doesn't know anything about this, I came of—"
"You keep still till I finish," she commanded him, her faded eyes sending forth something from behind her glasses that resembled blue lightning; "I say she's at the bottom of this as she's been at the bottom of everything else in Flamsted. She'll never have a penny of my money, that was Louis Champney's, to clear either herself or her state's-prison brat! Tell her that for me with my compliments on her son's career.—And as for you, Octavius Buzzby, I'll repeat what you said: I'm not blind and nobody else is in Flamsted, and I know, and everybody here knows, that you've been in love with Aurora Googe ever since my father took her into his home to bring up."
She knew that blow would tell. Octavius started as if he had been struck in the face by the flat of an enemy's hand. He stepped forward quickly and looked her straight in the eyes.
"You she-devil," he said in a low clear voice, turned on his heel and left the room. He closed the door behind him, and felt of the knob to see that he had shut it tight. This revelation of a woman's nature was sickening him; he wanted to make sure that the library door was shut close upon the malodorous charnel house of the passions. He shivered with a nervous chill as he hurried down the hall and went upstairs to his room in the ell.
He sat down on the bed and leaned his head on his hands, pressing his fingers against his throbbing temples. Half an hour passed; still he sat there trying to recover his mental poise; the terrible anger he had felt, combined with her last thrust, had shocked him out of it.
At last he rose; went to his desk; opened a drawer, took out a tin box, unlocked it, and laid the papers and books it contained one by one on the table to inspect them. He selected a few, snapped a rubber about the package and thrust it into the inner breast pocket of his coat. Then he reached for his hat, went downstairs, left word with Ann that he was going to drive down for the mail but that he should not be back before ten, proceeded to the stable, harnessed the mare into a light driving trap and drove away. He took the road to The Gore.