“Emmie has done me the honour—the very great honour—to become attached to me. Mr. Verinder, you do know that, don’t you? Emmie—God bless her—has become very fond of me.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Mr. Verinder wrathfully; and both the colonel and Eustace made movements.
Dyke’s manner changed, and he spoke with a sudden biting hardness. “Unless,” he said, “you admit that, it is useless for us to attempt to discuss the situation.”
Mr. Verinder said he would not admit it; certainly not. But, on consideration, he said he would go as far as possible to meet Dyke’s argument; he would admit as much as this—that, to some extent, Dyke had unfortunately fascinated the imagination of her; against a young inexperienced girl Dyke had employed the advantage given by age, the glamour of romance, and so forth; and he wound up to the effect that two hundred years ago it would have been said that Dyke had thrown a spell over her.
Dyke answered, sadly, that he had thrown no spell. The first evening he had certainly told her a few of his adventures.
“Oh, yes,” said Eustace, sneering. “Othello and Desdemona”; and he quoted a few words of the famous speech. “‘Hair-breadth escapes—antres vast and deserts idle.’ But then Othello wasn’t a married man. Unfortunately you are.”
Dyke had now risen from the sofa. He walked about the room and began to make a noise. To Mr. Verinder, in the midst of his anger and distress, the striding up and down of Dyke was a fresh discomfort, a new surface-sting. If anybody walked about rooms in that house, it should be he, the master of the house; it was a habit of his. No one else had the right to take the floor on him.
“Of course I’m married,” said Dyke, loudly, almost shouting. “How can I help that? It’s my misfortune, not my fault. Besides, I told her so. I told her so at once.”
“She doesn’t weigh the consequences,” said the father.