Have you sometimes, at a proper and sombre social function, dreamed of what would happen if some bold spirit rose up and sang one of Mr. George Robey’s sprightliest songs? Have you even contemplated, in what I may term horrified delight, the effect of a loudly uttered swear-word upon a gathering of elders? This remark of O’Hagan’s produced that sort of effect.
Betty Chatterton slowly sank down into an armchair, never removing her gaze from the last speaker. Sir Brian’s eyes opened wider and yet wider. He bit his lower lip—and took a step forward. He halted.
“You,” he began—and his tone was different from that of his normal speech—“you are here, to demand an explanation of me! You admit that you are——”
“I beg,” O’Hagan interrupted him, “that you will not refer to my statement as an admission. I am proud of my name, and proud of my friendship with your wife. You have wronged her, and you wrong Miss Chatterton. Particularly, you have wronged me. It is for this—for your gross insult to myself—that I am here to call you to account!”
Dillon nearly choked; and his fingers twitched convulsively. He believed, and with a large and generous trust had sought no word from his wife in aye or nay, that it had been another than himself who first had won her love. Later, he believed that his trust had been misplaced, had been betrayed; that the unknown who had played some part, great or small, in her life before he, Brian, came into it, was indeed lord of the kingdom that he madly had thought his own.
Now the usurper stood before him, his attitude neither apologetic nor explanatory—not that of the offender but of the offended! “—To call me to account!” echoed Dillon, in a voice sunken almost to a whisper.
That form of words was the crowning affront of all. It summoned into being the primeval savage which dwells somewhere within every man of Celtic stock. It was this primitive being, whose tribal pride had stifled relenting—denied the woman fair speech and trial—and not the cultured modern man, with whom O’Hagan was come to deal.
“Betty”—Dillon’s speech was thick as that of a drunkard—“would you mind postponing the supper?” He swallowed, dryly. “I will see you—to the car. Forgive me, but to-night——”
“I will see Miss Chatterton to a cab,” interrupted O’Hagan’s icy voice. “I have sent Lady Dillon home in the car. You will await me here——”
Dillon clenched his fists: his nostrils dilated. In that instant my friend came more nearly to an unseemly embroilment than ever in his surprising career.