Drayton burst into another laugh.
"You daren't try," he chuckled.
Hugh turned upon him with eyes of fire.
"So you measure my spirit by your own. Man, man!" he said, "do you know what you are doing?"
There was another brutal laugh from Drayton, but it died suddenly on his lips.
Then Hugh Ritson stepped to the door. He took a last look round. It was as if he knew that he had reached the beginning of the end—as if he realized that he was never again to stand in the familiar room. The future, that seemed so near an hour ago, was gone from him forever; the cup that he had lifted to his lips lay in fragments at his feet. He saw it all in that swift instant. On his face there were the lines of agony, but over them there played the smile of resolve. He put one hand to his forehead, and then said in a voice so low as to be no more than a whisper:
"Wait and see."
When the guests, who stood huddled together like sheep in a storm, had recovered their stunned senses, Hugh Ritson was gone from the room. Drayton had sunk into a chair near where Bonnithorne stood, and was whining like a whipped hound.
"Go after him! What will he do? You know I was always against it!"
But presently he stood up and laughed, and bantered and crowed, and observed that it was a pity if a gentleman could not be master in his own house, and that what couldn't be cured must be endured.