k you all to join me? John, bring the juleps!"
CHAPTER XI
All the way back to his house St. George's wrath kept him silent. He had
rarely been so stirred. He was not a brawler--his whole life had been
one of peace; his whole ambition to be the healer of differences, and
yet there were some things he could not stand. One of these was cruelty
to a human being, and Rutter's public disowning of Harry was cruelty of
the most contemptible kind. But one explanation of such an outrage
was possible--the man's intolerable egoism, added to his insufferable
conceit. Only once did Temple address Harry, walking silently by his
side under the magnolias, and then only to remark, more to himself than
to his companion--"It's his damned, dirty pride, Harry--that's what it
is!"
Harry also held his peace. He had no theories regarding his father's
conduct: only facts confronted him, one being that he had purposely
humiliated him before the men who had known him from a boy, and with
whom his future life must be cast. The end had come now. He was adrift
without a home. Even Kate was lost. This last attack of his father's
would widen the breach between them, for she would never overlook this
last stigma when she heard of it, as she certainly must. Nobody would
then be left on his side except his dear mother, the old house servants,
and St. George, and of these St. George alone could be of any service to
him.
It had all been so horrible too, and so undeserved--worse than anything
he had ever dreamed of; infinitely worse than the night he had been
driven from Moorlands. Never in all his life had he shown his father
anything but obedience and respect; furthermore, he had loved and
admired him; loved his dash and vigor; his superb physique for a man of
his years--some fifty odd--loved too his sportsmanlike qualities--not a
man in the county was his equal in the saddle, and not a man in his own
or any other county could handle the ribbons so well. If his father had
not agreed with him as to when and where he should teach a vulgarian
manners, that had been a question about which gentlemen might differ,
but to have treated him with contempt, to insult him in public, leaving
him no chance to defend himself--force him, really, into a position
which made it impossible for him to strike back--was altogether a
different thing, and for that he would never, never forgive him.
Then a strange thing happened in the boy's mind. It may have be
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