g fire.
"You--you dare!" he shouted. "You insolent blackguard! You force your
way in here and dare--dare----!" And he clenched his fist, wildly
shaking it.
Nigel Anstruthers, staggering on his uncertain feet, would have shouted
also, but could not, though he tried, and he heard his own voice come
forth brokenly.
"Yes, I dare! I--your--my own--my----!"
Swaying and tottering, he swung round to the chair he had left, and fell
into it, even while the old Duke, who stood raging before him, started
back in outraged amazement. What was the fellow doing? Was he making
faces at him? The drawn malignant mouth and muscles suggested it. Was
he a lunatic, indeed? But the sense of disgusted outrage changed all at
once to horror, as, with a countenance still more hideously livid and
twisted, his visitor slid helplessly from his seat and lay a huddling
heap of clothes on the floor.
CHAPTER L
THE PRIMEVAL THING
When Mr. Vanderpoel landed in England his wife was with him. This
quiet-faced woman, who was known to be on her way to join her daughter
in England, was much discussed, envied, and glanced at, when she
promenaded the deck with her husband, or sat in her chair softly wrapped
in wonderful furs. Gradually, during the past months, she had been told
certain modified truths connected with her elder daughter's marriage.
They had been painful truths, but had been so softened and expurgated
of their worst features that it had been possible to bear them, when one
realised that they did not, at least, mean that Rosy had forgotten or
ceased to love her mother and father, or wish to visit her home. The
steady clearness of foresight and readiness of resource which were often
spoken of as being specially characteristic of Reuben S. Vanderpoel,
were all required, and employed with great tenderness, in the management
of this situation. As little as it was possible that his wife should
know, was the utmost she must hear and be hurt by. Unless ensuing events
compelled further revelations, the rest of it should be kept from her.
As further protection, her husband had frankly asked her to content
herself with a degree of limited information.
"I have meant all our lives, Annie, to keep from you the unpleasant
things a woman need not be troubled with," he had said. "I promised
myself I would when you were a girl. I knew you would face things, if
I needed your help, but you were a gentle little soul, like Rosy, and I
never intende
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