He had crushed down such thoughts as disloyal to his young wife, as ungrateful and unworthy; and at such times he would fall into self-contempt for having entertained them. Then Una herself had revived those doubts three months ago, when she had suggested that Ned Tremayne, who was then at Torres Vedras with Colonel Fletcher, was the very man to fill the vacant place of military secretary to the adjutant, if he would accept it. In the reaction of self-contempt, and in a curious surge of pride almost as perverse as his humility, O’Moy had adopted her suggestion, and thereafter—in the past-three months, that is to say—the unreasonable devil of O’Moy’s jealousy had slept, almost forgotten. Now, by a chance remark whose indiscretion Tremayne could not realise, since he did not so much as suspect the existence of that devil, he had suddenly prodded him into wakefulness. That Tremayne should show himself tender of Lady O’Moy’s feelings in a matter in which O’Moy himself must seem neglectful of them was gall and wormwood to the adjutant. He dissembled it, however, out of a natural disinclination to appear in the ridiculous role of the jealous husband.
“That,” he said, “is a matter that you may safely leave to me,” and his lips closed tightly upon the words when they were uttered.
“Oh, quite so,” said Tremayne, no whit abashed. He persisted nevertheless. “You know Una’s feelings for Dick.”
“When I married Una,” the adjutant cut in sharply, “I did not marry the entire Butler family.” It hardened him unreasonably against Dick to have the family cause pleaded in this way. “It’s sick to death I am of Master Richard and his escapades. He can get himself out of this mess, or he can stay in it.”
“You mean that you’ll not lift a hand to help him.”
“Devil a finger,” said O’Moy.
And Tremayne, looking straight into the adjutant’s faintly smouldering blue eyes, beheld there a fierce and rancorous determination which he was at a loss to understand, but which he attributed to something outside his own knowledge that must lie between O’Moy and his brother-in-law.
“I am sorry,” he said gravely. “Since that is how you feel, it is to be hoped that Dick Butler may not survive to be taken. The alternative would weigh so cruelly upon Una that I do not care to contemplate it.”
“And who the devil asks you to contemplate it?” snapped O’Moy. “I am not aware that it is any concern of yours at all.”
“My dear O’Moy!” It was an exclamation of protest, something between pain and indignation, under the stress of which Tremayne stepped entirely outside of the official relations that prevailed between himself and the adjutant. And the exclamation was accompanied by such a look of dismay and wounded sensibilities that O’Moy, meeting this, and noting the honest manliness of Tremayne’s bearing and countenance; was there and then the victim of reaction. His warm-hearted and impulsive nature made him at once profoundly ashamed of himself. He stood up, a tall, martial figure, and his ruggedly handsome, shaven countenance reddened under its tan. He held out a hand to Tremayne.