“I am to blame!” gurgled his lordship, veins swelling at his brow. “I am to blame that you should have carried her off thus? And—by God!—had you meant to marry her honestly and fittingly, I might find it in my heart to forgive you. But to practice such villainy! To attempt to put this foul trick upon the child!”
Mr. Caryll thought for an instant of another child whose child he was, and a passion of angry mockery at the forgetfulness of age welled up from the bitter soul of him. Outwardly he remained a very mirror for placidity.
“Your lordship had threatened to disinherit me if I married her,” said Rotherby.
“'Twas to save her from you,” Ostermore explained, entirely unnecessarily. “And you thought to—to—By God! sir, I marvel you have the courage to confront me. I marvel!”
“Take me away, my lord,” Hortensia begged him, touching his arm.
“Aye, we were best away,” said the earl, drawing her to him. Then he flung a hand out at Rotherby in a gesture of repudiation, of anathema. “But 'tis not the end on't for you, you knave! What I threatened, I will perform. I'll disinherit you. Not a penny of mine shall come to you. Ye shall starve for aught I care; starve, and—and—the world be well rid of a villain. I—I disown you. Ye're no son of mine. I'll take oath ye're no son of mine!”
Mr. Caryll thought that, on the contrary, Rotherby was very much his father's son, and he added to his observations upon human nature the reflection that sinners are oddly blessed with short memories. He was entirely dispassionate again by now.
As for Rotherby, he received his father's anger with a scornful smile and a curling lip. “You'll disinherit me?” quoth he in mockery. “And of what, pray? If report speaks true, you'll be needing to inherit something yourself to bear you through your present straitness.” He shrugged and produced his snuff-box with an offensive simulation of nonchalance. “Ye cannot cut the entail,” he reminded his almost apoplectic sire, and took snuff delicately, sauntering windowwards.
“Cut the entail? The entail?” cried the earl, and laughed in a manner that seemed to bode no good. “Have you ever troubled to ascertain what it amounts to? You fool, it wouldn't keep you in—in—in snuff!”
Lord Rotherby halted in his stride, half-turned and looked at his father over his shoulder. The sneering mask was wiped from his face, which became blank. “My lord—” he began.