“Fiddlesticks!� said the doctor.
Colonel Royall laughed a little in spite of himself. “You love Diana, too,� he remarked.
“I do,� said William Cheyney, “and I don’t believe Jacob will make her happy. But, Lord bless me, David, you and I won’t do the choosing—Miss Di will! In my opinion it won’t be Jacob Eaton, either.� Then he added briskly: “This young lawyer of ours is right about Aylett; he’s a machine man and the machine is rotten. We want Yarnall; I wish you’d come to think so, too.�
Colonel Royall thought, putting the tips of his fingers together. “The truth is, the Eatons are too near to me,� he admitted quietly; “you know Jinny can’t forget that a Yarnall shot her husband, and I don’t know that I could ask it of her.�
“Her husband was guilty,� said the doctor flatly.
“I’m afraid he was,� admitted Colonel Royall, “though Mrs. Yarnall denied it; the jury justified Yarnall.�
“I can’t forgive one man for shooting another for an unworthy woman!� said the doctor fiercely, forgetting many things.
The slow red crept up to Colonel Royall’s hair. “I ought to have done it,� he said simply; “but—but I let him live to marry her.�
“Just so,� said William Cheyney; “solidly right, too; that’s purgatory enough for most of ’em,� he added, under his breath, as he took the long turn on the veranda.
Colonel Royall did not hear him; his head was bare, and the light breeze stirred his white hair; it had turned suddenly, twenty years before. “It would be against all precedent for any of the family to favor a Yarnall,� he remarked slowly.