Bath Tangle

the room to where a side-table stood, bearing upon it several decanters and glasses. He filled two of the glasses, and returned with them, setting one down upon his desk. He dropped a hand on Gerard’s shoulder, gripping it not unkindly. “Enough! Come, now! I’ve told you I don’t like an excess of sensibility! No, I am not roasting you: I see that things are more serious than I had supposed. Here’s some wine for you! Drink it, and then tell me without any more nonsense what it is that I have done to upset you so much!”

The words were scarcely sympathetic, but the voice, although unemotional, was no longer derisive. Gerard said thickly: “I don’t want it! I—”

“Do as I bid you!”

The voice had sharpened. Gerard responded to it involuntarily, starting a little. He took the glass in his unsteady hand, and gulped down some of its contents. Rotherham retired again to his chair behind the large desk, and picked up his own glass. “Now, in as few words as possible, what is it?”

“You know what it is,” Gerard said bitterly. “You used your rank—and your wealth—to steal from me the only girl I could ever care for!” He perceived that Rotherham was staring at him with sudden intentness, and added: “Miss Laleham!”

“Good God!”

The ejaculation held blank astonishment, but Gerard said: “You knew very well—must have known!—that I— that she—”

“No doubt!—had I half the interest in your affairs with which you credit me! Asit is, I did not know.” He paused, and sipped his wine, looking at Gerard over the rim of the glass, his brows frowning again, the eyes beneath them narrowed, very hard and bright. “It would have made no difference, except that I should have informed you of the event. I am sorry, if the news came as a blow to you, but at your age you will very speedily recover from it.”

This speech, uttered, as it was, in a cold voice, was anything but soothing to a young gentleman suffering the pangs of his first love-affair. It was evident that Rotherham thought his passion a thing of very little account; and his suggestion that it would soon be forgotten, instead of consoling Gerard, made his bosom swell with indignation.

“So that is all you have to say! I might have known how it would be! Recover from it!”

“Yes, recover from it,” said Rotherham. His lips curled. “I should be more impressed by these tragedy-airs if it had not taken you so long to make up your mind to enact me an affecting scene! I know not how many weeks it is since the engagement was announced, but—”

“I came into Gloucestershire the instant I knew of it!” Gerard said, half starting from his chair. “I never saw the announcement! When I’m up at Cambridge, very often I don’t look at a newspaper for days on end! No one told me until only the other day, when Mrs Maldon asked me—asked me!—if I was acquainted with the future Lady Rotherham! I was astonished, as may be supposed, to learn that you were engaged, but that was as nothing to the—the horror and stupefaction which held me s-speechless, when Em—Miss Laleham’s name was disclosed!”

“I wish to God you were still suffering from horror and stupefaction, if that is the effect such feelings have upon you!” broke in Rotherham. “Be damned to these periods of yours! If you would play-act less, I might believe more! As it is—!” He shrugged. “You came down at the beginning of June, it is now August, your mother is well aware of my engagement, and you say you heard no mention of it until a few days ago? Coming it too strong, Gerard! The truth is that you’ve talked yourself into this fine frenzy—putting on airs to be interesting!”

Gerard was on his feet, colour flaming in his cheeks. “You shall unsay that! How dare you give me the lie? I have not seen my mother—that is, I had not done so until yesterday! I went with the Maldons to Scarborough! When I learned of the engagement, I posted south immediately!”

“What the devil for?”

“To put a stop to it!” Gerard said fiercely.

“To do what?”

“Yes! It did not occur to you that I might thrust a spoke into your wheel, did it?”

“No, and it still does not.”

“We shall see! I know, as surely as I stand here—”

“Which won’t be very surely, if I have to listen to much more of this rodomontade!”

“You cannot silence me by threats, my lord!”

“It seems improbable that you could be silenced by anything short of a gag. And don’t call me my lord! It makes you appear even more absurd than you do already.”

“I care nothing for what you may think of me, or for your jibes! Emily does not love you— cannot love you! You have forced her into this horrible engagement! You and her mother between you! And I say it shall not be!”

Rotherham was once more lying back in his chair, the derisive smile on his lips. “Indeed? And how do you propose to stop it?”

“I am going to see Emily!”

“Oh, no, you are not!”

“Nothing—nothing will prevent me! I know well how the business was accomplished! I was out of the way, she,so gentle, so timid, so friendless, a—a dove, fluttering unavailing in—in the clutches of a vulture (for so I think of Lady Laleham, curse her!) and of a—a wolf! She, I say—” He broke off, for Rotherham had given a shout of laughter.

“Oh, I don’t think the dove would do much fluttering in such a situation as that!” he said.

Gerard, white with fury, hammered his fist on the desk between them. “Ay, a splendid jest, isn’t it? Almost as droll as to lead to the altar a girl whose heart you know to be given to another! But you will not do it!”

“I probably shouldn’t. Are you asking me to believe that her heart has been given to you?”

“It is true, for all your sneers! From the moment I first saw her, at the Assembly, last Christmas, we became attached!”

“Very likely. She is a beautiful girl, and you were the first young man to come in her way. You both enjoyed an agreeable flirtation. I’ve no objection.”

“It was not a flirtation! It endured! When she came to London, before you had cast your—your predatory eye in her direction, the attachment between us had been confirmed! Had it not been for the odious pretensions of her mother, who would not listen to my offer, it would not have been your engagement that was announced, but mine!”

“Rid your mind of that illusion at least! I should not have permitted you to become engaged to Miss Laleham, or to anyone else.”

“I can believe it! But I do not admit your right to interfere in what concerns me so nearly!”

“What you admit doesn’t signify. Until you come of age, I have rights over you of which you don’t appear to have the smallest conception. I have not chosen to exercise very many of these, but I will tell you now that I shall allow you neither to entangle yourself in an engagement, nor to embarrass my affianced wife by obtruding yourself upon her.”

“Obtruding—! Ha! So you fancy she would be embarrassed, do you, cousin?”

“If you subjected her to such—a scene as this, I imagine she would be thrown into a fever. She is recovering from a severe attack of influenza.”

“Is she?” said Gerard, with awful sarcasm. “Or was it a severe attack of the Marquis of Rotherham? I know that she has been hidden from me: that I learned at Cherrifield Place, this very day! From Lady Laleham I expected to hear nothing of Emily’s present whereabouts! She would take good care not to let me come near Emily! Now it appears that you too are afraid to disclose her direction! That tells its own tale, Cousin Rotherham!”

“I have not the smallest objection to disclosing her direction,” replied Rotherham. “She is visiting her grandmother, in Bath.”

“In Bath!” cried Gerard, his face lighting up.

“Yes, in Bath. But you, my dear Gerard, will not go to Bath. When you leave this house, you will return to