"Like Francis Graeme before her," mused Thaneford.
"Yes, and before him four other men, all masters of 'Hildebrand Hundred'—Yardley, and Randall, and Horace, and Richard. But perhaps you know these things even better than I do."
"Evidently a seat perilous," he said sardonically. "No wonder you do not choose to occupy it."
I don't know what mad, foolish impulse moved me to go and sit down in the big, swivel-chair, but there I presently found myself, my face reddening a trifle under the quizzical stare of John Thaneford's dull, black eyes. Effingham entered with the whiskey and glasses, and I bade him put the tray on the desk and fetch a chair for Mr. Thaneford.
"Good medicine!" approved my guest as he tossed off his glass. There was a plate of biscuit at his elbow; he took one of the little round crackers and bit into it; then, with a smothered ejaculation, he spewed forth the half masticated fragments. I looked my natural surprise.
"I never could abide those damned saltines," he explained, with a touch of his old glowering sulkiness. "I'll drink with you, Cousin Hugh, till the swallows homeward fly, but I'll not taste your salt; I reserve the right to withdraw the flag of truce without notice."
Well, I should have had warning a-plenty by this time, but it was all to no purpose; I had the full realization that I was treading a dangerous path, and yet it was not in my conscious power to take one single step toward safety. Call it fatalism if you will, or the pure recklessness engendered by the growing conviction that Betty was lost to me for good and all; whatever the secret springs of my present course of action, the outcome inevitably must have been the same; a Scotchman would have said that I was fey. And perhaps I was.
I never had been what you call a drinking man, but to-night I was matching glass for glass with "Black Jack" Thaneford, who could put any man, yes any three men in King William County, under the table. The night came on apace, and twice Effingham had been ordered to bring in another supply of spirits. Suddenly John Thaneford broke away from the trivial subjects which we had been discussing.
"Some two years ago, Cousin Hugh," he began, "I gave you a choice—Betty Graeme or the 'Hundred.' Do you remember?"
"I remember," I answered steadily.