Llewellyn hated fencing.
“I wish you wouldn’t go to Crishowell, Harry.”
The elder flared up like a match held over a lamp-chimney.
“Why shouldn’t I go, if I choose? What the devil has it got to do with you? Am I to get permission before I take my father’s messages?—‘Yes, sir, I will go if I can, but I must ask Llewellyn first.’—That would be splendid, wouldn’t it? Because I always forgot you were my younger brother, you’ve forgotten it too. It’s my fault, I know!”
Llewellyn dropped his arm as though the words had made it red-hot. His pride in Harry’s affection had always been so great that they were like a blow, and he had not the faintest consciousness of superiority to his brother to dull their effect.
“That’s true,” he said, with a quietness so false that it sobered Harry, “but it need never trouble you again—it can’t, for nothing will ever be the same now.”
And he opened the door of the kitchen-garden, and was through it and was hurrying along between the box-borders before the other had realized what had happened.
He stood for a moment looking after his brother, and then rushed to the door, knowing that every instant that kept them apart would widen the gulf that had opened between them. But it had slammed to, and, as there was something wrong with the latch, it had the habit of sticking tight and refusing to move when roughly handled. His pull had no more effect upon it than if it had been locked, and he tore and shook at the stubborn thing, feeling like a person in a nightmare whom inanimate objects conspire together to undo. Seeing that his fight with the latch was useless, he set off running round the garden wall to the entrance at its opposite end; it was open when he reached it, for Llewellyn had come through and was standing by a bed of Christmas roses whose draggled petals had evidently not recovered from the recent thaw.
“Loo! Loo! don’t go!” he cried as he saw him turn away. “Oh, Llewellyn! I didn’t mean that, I didn’t mean it!”