Cosgrove’s face was a thing to watch, while the parade of emotions passed across it. Mere surprise vanished with the first turn of his head along with the rest of the heads. His eyes widened, but for a few seconds were blank with absolute stupefaction, and when enlightenment finally appeared to come within him, the resentment expressed in his lowering brows and glowing eyes seemed to be mingled with a sense of shame, or else there was no meaning in the sidewise shift of those eyes and in those irresolute lips. He swallowed, and his head made a small, sharp jerk in the act. A muscle twitched in his cheek. Bob Cullen was still saying, “You—you—” and Lib Dale was whispering dire things to him.
That other, admirable, American tried to deal with the frenzied youth. Paula Lebetwood said, “Bob, you’re making a child of yourself. Remember where you are.”
“What’s the trouble?” asked Ludlow in a matter-of-fact tone.
“Ask him—ask him, that’s all!” cried Bob Cullen bitterly, and then, as is the wont of youths who believe themselves wronged, commenced himself to explain. “He thought—you thought, Mr. Cosgrove”—(“Mr.” Cosgrove; much revealed by that “Mr.”)—“you thought that because you were bigger and stronger than I was, that you could get away with talking the way you did. Well, you needn’t think that it was because I was afraid of you—”
I noticed that Lib Dale was actually twisting her young compatriot’s arm in an endeavour to gain his attention, but he held on through pain, white and red by turns.
“I’m ready any time you are, Mr. Cosgrove, and don’t you forget it. I’ll show you, Mr. Cosgrove. I’ll fight you a duel or a wager of battle or anything—”
“My dear boy,” slipped in Doctor Aire, who took the interruption of his narrative in very good humour, “the wager of battle is null and void. That was the whole upshot of my story, if you had only the patience—”
“I don’t care if it’s null and void or not. Mr. Cosgrove, if you’re a man—”
Paula Lebetwood had taken hold of the half-hysterical youth’s other arm; she placed a firm hand across his mouth, effectually stifling what further wild challenge he might have uttered on the spot. Lib sank down flushed and pouting, her blue eyes flinging defiance to all of us. Cosgrove, who had not uttered a word, had a face like a man’s in an apoplexy, and his head was lower between his shoulders than it was accustomed to be.
The youngster Bob Cullen was still standing there like a bulldog in the centre of the ring, anger adding a degree of dignity to his stature. Ten, twenty, seconds may have gone by, and still he confronted the Irishman, whose only recognition of his challenge had been a turn of his head and that slow dark flame in his face.