CHAPTER XXX
[The Story of what Happened after the Easter Ball]
So far the only sounds heard in the billiard-room had been the questions and the answers. The listeners had been so still; particularly had this seemed to be the case with Violet Forster. She gripped with her gloved hand the back of the chair as if from the very intensity of the grip she derived moral support. She stood very straight, with her lips tightly pressed together, and with a strained look on her white face, as if with her every faculty she was bent on following the words, without missing a syllable or an accent, and, if possible, reading any hidden meaning which might lie behind them. Her immobility was so continuous as to be almost unnatural.
But when Mr. Draycott made that reference to what had happened on the occasion of the Easter ball at Avonham her whole being seemed to undergo a sudden transformation. Her hands fell to her side; a faint flush came into her cheeks; her lips parted; she moved a little forward with an air of odd expectancy, as if she longed, and feared, to hear what was coming.
Before Draycott was allowed to continue there was an interposition from Anthony Dodwell, addressed directly to him.
"Let me warn you, Draycott, that for every lie you're going to utter--and I can see from the look of you that you're going to tell nothing else but lies--I'll call you to an account; and don't flatter yourself that, however your friends may try to cover you, you'll escape me."
As he answered, Draycott looked Anthony Dodwell very straight in the face.
"I shall never be afraid of you again--never! Don't you suppose it!"
"Don't you be so sure. You were afraid of me once; and, when you and I are again alone together, you'll be just as much afraid of me as you ever were. Gentlemen of your habits of body are only courageous when they know themselves to be in a position in which they are sure of being protected by their friends."
"I don't think I ever was afraid of you, Dodwell; but you were a mystery to me, I didn't understand you, and I was a fool. But now I do understand you; if you were holding a revolver to my throat I shouldn't be afraid of the kind of man you are. I know you."