Ted jumped up. "Don't say it, Cy! Whatever it is you're going to say—just don't say it!"
Cyrus had risen and was putting in his pocket a paper Mr. McFarland had given him. "No?" he said smoothly, as if quite unperturbed. "And why not?"
At that uncaring manner something seemed to break inside Ted's head, as if all the things Cyrus had said about Ruth had suddenly gathered there and pressed too hard. His arm shot out at his brother.
"That's why not!" he cried.
He had knocked Cyrus back against the wall and stood there threatening him. To the minister, who had stepped up, protesting, he snapped: "None of your put-in! And after this, just be a little more careful in your talk—see?"
He stepped back from Cyrus but stood there glaring, breathing hard with anger. Cyrus, whose face had gone white, but who was calm, went back to the table and resumed what he had been doing there.
"A creditable performance, I must say, for the day of your father's funeral," he remarked after a moment.
"That's all right!" retorted Ted. "Don't think I'm sorry! I don't know any better way to start out new—start out alone—than to tell you what I think of you!—let you know that I'll not take a thing off of you about Ruth. You've done enough, Cy. Now you quit. You kept mother and father away when they didn't want to be kept away—and I want to tell you that I'm on to you, anyway. Don't think for a minute that I believe it's your great virtue that's hurting you. You can't put that over on me. It's pride and stubbornness and just plain meanness makes you the way you are! Yes, I'm glad to have a chance to tell you what I think of you—and then I'm through with you, Cy. I think you're a pin-head! Why, you haven't got the heart of a flea! I don't know how anybody as fine as Ruth ever came to have a brother like you!"
His feeling had grown as he spoke, and he stopped now because he was too close to losing control; he reddened as his brother—calm, apparently unmoved—surveyed him as if mildly amused. That way Cyrus looked at him when they were quarrelling always enraged him. If he would only say something—not stand there as if he were too superior to bother himself with such a thing! He knew Cyrus knew it maddened him—that that was why he did it, and so it was quietly that he resumed: "No, Cy, I'm not with you, and you might as well know it. I'm for Ruth. You've got the world on your side—and I know the arguments you can put up, and all that, but Ruth's got a—" he fumbled a minute for the words—"Ruth's got a power and an understanding about her that you'll never have. She's got a heart. More than that, she's got—character."
He paused, thinking, and Cyrus did speak then. "Oh, I don't think I'd use that word," he said suavely.