No great revolution appears at its best in the initial stages, and certainly this was a case in point. Balance he had destroyed beyond all dispute, but in its place had arisen chaos. Large patches of plaster littered the carpet, and the grate was filled with pieces of wood and wreckage. Where once the overmantel had covered its surface, the wallpaper, in contradistinction to the faded colours surrounding, showed bright and new. It seemed as though the spook of the detestable affair still haunted the spot, and would continue to do so down all the ages.
In that moment of extreme desolation Wynne experienced the sensations which possess a pioneer when he doubts if he has the strength to cross the ranges. He had, however, already committed himself too deeply to hang back, and so, with feverish energy, he began to drag the remains into a corner of the room. As he did so he overset an occasional table bearing a potted fern and some china knick-knacks, all of which were smashed to atoms.
With this calamity Wynne Rendall lost control of himself. The mainspring of his idea snapped, and he became merely a whirlwind of senseless activity. He dragged pictures from the walls and thrust them beneath tables, he wrenched the green plush curtains from the lacquered pole and cast them anyhow—over chairs and sofas—the straight-laid rugs he pulled askew, he flung an armful of books haphazard on the top of the piano—he set fire to the crinkly paper in the grate and threw two aspidistras into the garden. An insane humour seizing him, he brought in the hat-rack from the hall, and hung coloured plates on all its pegs.
At the end of an hour the effect he had produced could have been more simply arrived at, and with less destruction to property, if some expert from Barcelona had exploded a bomb in the apartment.
Wynne’s clothing was awry, his fingers cut and bleeding, and his face covered with dust and perspiration, when his father, followed by his mother, opened the door and stood spellbound upon the threshold.
With eyes glittering like diamonds he turned and faced them. The long pause before any word was spoken was the hardest persecution he had to bear. Then came the inevitable:
“What the devil is the meaning of this?”
“It means—” he began, but the words stuck in his throat.
“Are you responsible for this?” Mr. Rendall took a step toward him.
Wynne nodded. “Yes-s,” he breathed.