"By God!" said Bradstock, speaking at large to all but Rivaulx, who was breaking up a cane chair at a short distance, "I do think, oaths or none, that the man who is married to her should tell the duchess in confidence."
But Rivaulx heard in the intervals of destruction, and stayed his hand.
"Ha, ha!" he said aloud, "I love her! I am a man! I love her! What shall I do?"
He threw the fragments of the chair into a fountain, kicked over a flower-pot, and ran again into the park, taking the fence in his stride.
"I believe it's remorse," said Titania. "I begin to suspect the marquis!"
But everybody suspected everybody, and yet at the very height of their rage what Bradstock said sank into their hearts. Pen had selected them with care for their inherent nobility. They said to themselves that they would show how noble they were. With one accord they straightened themselves up, and an air of desperate resolve was upon every man's face.
"I will think it out and make up my mind this afternoon," said each of them. They walked away in different directions, and in five minutes not one of them was in sight but the marquis, who was knocking his head against a sapling in a way that caused the herd of Jerseys to revise their estimate of humanity. Even he gave up at last, and went off into the distance with great strides.
"I say," said Bob, "I don't know what to make of this. Where are they going, and what are they going to do? I wish I knew where Pen is; I'd send her a telegram."
The rest of the party said nothing. Titania wept. Old Goring asked Bradstock for a light, and at last got his cigar going. He said nothing whatsoever. Ethel Mytton was in a fearful state of nervousness, and shook with it. Bradstock walked up and down whistling. The men who were not in it gathered in the billiard-room, and said they thought they had better have urgent calls to town. They wanted to discuss the scandal in their clubs. They knew that there wasn't a house in England that would not consider their presence in the light of a tremendous favour, considering all that had occurred at Goring while they were there. They went, and regretted it afterward, for much occurred that very afternoon that no man could have foreseen.
Not a soul came in to lunch but Bob and Bradstock and the old duke.