TO say that Pembroke was angry with Cole is hardly putting it strong enough. He ardently longed that he might once again inflict a thrashing upon him like those Cole had been wont to receive in his school days. He had taken the little clergyman to Malvern, and kept him a day or two before sending him home to his mother. Cole’s remorse was pitiful. He wanted to write to the whole House of Bishops, to make a public reparation, to do a number of quixotic things which Pembroke’s strong sense forbade peremptorily. When after two days of sincere, but vociferous penitence, Mr. Cole was at last sent back to his rectory, he went under strict instructions from Pembroke to keep his misfortune to himself. But alas for poor Cole! What stung him most was that Madame Koller should have seen him in that condition—for the two hard slaps that she had given him had by no means cured his infatuation. On the contrary, her strong nerves, her fierce temper, her very recklessness of conventionality, irresistibly attracted his timid and conservative nature. What had offended Pembroke, who looked for a certain feminine restraint in all women, and gentleness, even in daring, had charmed Cole. His anguish, when he found, that in addition to his paroxysm of shame, he suffered tortures because he could no longer see Madame Koller, almost frightened him into convulsions.
Pembroke had meant to be very prudent with Ahlberg, and particularly to avoid anything like a dispute. He felt that the natural antagonism between them would be likely to produce a quarrel unless he were remarkably careful, and as he regarded Ahlberg with great contempt, he had a firm determination never to give him either cause or chance of offense. According to the tradition in which he had been raised, a quarrel between two men was liable to but one outcome—an archaic one, it is true, but one which made men extremely cautious and careful not to offend. If a blow once passed it became a tragedy. Pembroke promised himself prudence, knowing that he had not the coolest temper in the world. But when, some days after the dinner, they met, this time in the road also, and Ahlberg’s first remark was “What capital fun we had with our friend Cole!” Pembroke’s temper instantly got the better of him.
“Mr. Ahlberg, do you think it quite a gentlemanly thing to invite a man like Cole to accept your hospitality in a woman’s house, and then deliberately to make him drunk?” asked he.
Ahlberg’s sallow skin grew a little paler.
“Is that your view?” he asked, coolly. “I understand something occurred with Madame Koller, which you naturally resent.”
As Ahlberg’s face grew whiter, Pembroke’s grew redder. He felt that first savage impulse to seize Ahlberg and shake him as a mastiff would a terrier. He stood still for a moment or two and then stepping up close to Ahlberg, said to him: “You are a scoundrel.”
Ahlberg grew perfectly rigid. This blunt, Anglo-Saxon way of picking a quarrel amazed him. He brought his heels together, and stood up very erect, in the first position of dancing, and said:
“This is most extraordinary. Does Monsieur know that but one result can follow this?”
“Anything you please,” answered Pembroke, carelessly, “but if you force me to fight I will certainly kill you. You know something of my pistol practice.”
Ahlberg hesitated a moment, and then drawing up his sleeve, exposed a great red knot on his right arm.
“If I desired to take advantage of you I might say that you knew my pistol arm was disabled. I got this six months ago—and it will be six months more before it is well. The paralysis is still partial. But as soon as I can trust it, you will hear from me.”
“By all means,” answered Pembroke.
Then they touched their hats ceremoniously, and went their way, Pembroke plunging through the brushwood on the side of the road with his dog at his heels.
Pembroke never despised himself more than at that moment. Here was he involved in a quarrel with a man for whom he felt a thorough contempt in every respect, and against which he had particularly warned himself.
As to the method of settling the trouble proposed, that his own good sense condemned, albeit it was still in vogue in Virginia. In the heat of anger he had promised Ahlberg to kill him—while he, Pembroke, knew in his heart, that certainly nothing Ahlberg could say or do, would make him deliberately carry out any such intention. But the folly, wickedness, petulance, want of self-command that brought the quarrel about, enraged him more with himself than with Ahlberg. He could imagine Cave’s cool and cutting disapproval—Colonel Berkeley’s uproarious and vociferous protest. He knew his own folly in the case so well, that he fancied everybody else must know it too. At all events, the trouble was postponed, and he felt prepared to do a great deal, even to the extent of apologizing to Ahlberg, rather than fight him. And then Elise. What a creature she was to be sure—singing to him to charm him, and declaiming poetry like the tragic muse—and then that scene with Cole, at which the recollection even made him shudder and laugh too. Why couldn’t he fall thoroughly in love with Olivia Berkeley? Probably she would refuse him tartly, but at least it would rid him of Madame Koller, and it would be a bracing, healthy experience. He had half a mind to go back and suggest to Ahlberg that they observe their usual terms toward each other until the time came that Ahlberg might demand satisfaction. A strained demeanor would be peculiarly unpleasant, considering the way the people at The Beeches and the Berkeleys and Miles and himself were associated. But he reflected that Ahlberg was a man of the world, and would probably let things go on smoothly, anyhow. It turned out he was correct, as the next time they met, Ahlberg’s manner was imperturbable, and the cold politeness which had always existed between the two men was not visibly changed.
Walking along, and cutting viciously with his stick at the harmless bushes in the path on this particular day, he soon found himself near the fence that ran around the lawn at Isleham. He concluded he would go in and see the Berkeleys for half an hour. It would be a refreshing change from Madame Koller and Ahlberg to Olivia’s pure, bright face and the Colonel’s jovial, wholesome chaff. It was a mild, spring-like day in early winter. The path led to the lawn through the old-fashioned garden, where everything was brown and sere except the box hedge that stiffly bordered the straight, broad path that led through the garden. He remembered having heard Miles at breakfast say something about going over to Isleham, and was therefore not surprised to see him walking up and down the path with Olivia. She had a book in her hand and was reading in her low, clear voice, aloud to him as they walked slowly, and Miles was following what she read closely, occasionally stopping to ask a question and looking quite cheerful and interested. It came back to him that Miles had spoken of Olivia and himself taking up Italian together. From her manner, and from the expression on her charming face in its little black velvet hood, he saw she was doing it for Miles’ sake. He loved that younger brother as well as one human being ever loved another. To have saved the boy one pang he would have done much—but he could do so little! Miles was no longer fit for field sports, society he shunned, reading he could do for himself. Pembroke felt every day the masculine inability to console. Yet here was this girl who had found something to interest poor little Miles, and was doing it with the sweetest womanliness in the world. She probably cared nothing for Italian, but Miles was fond of it.
“Wait,” said Olivia, with authority, as he came up. “Don’t speak a word. I must let you see how well I can read this,” and she read a stanza correctly enough.
“That will do,” remarked Pembroke, who knew something of Italian, “you were wise to choose that Francesca da Rimini story though. It is the easiest part in the whole book.”
Olivia slammed the volume together indignantly, and drew down her pretty brows in a frown.
“You and papa are always laughing at us. Never mind Miles, I don’t mind them I assure you.”
Pembroke went in and remained to luncheon, as did Miles. The Colonel was in great spirits. He had had a brush on the road with Mrs. Peyton, and had been over to The Beeches.
“And by the way, Pembroke, what’s this I hear about poor Cole getting as tight as Bacchus the other night at The Beeches?”
“Nothing at all,” answered Pembroke. He did not mean to say anything about Ahlberg’s share in it, considering the relations between them, but the Colonel was too sharp for him.
“Now, Cole wouldn’t go and do a thing like that unless he was put up to it. Didn’t our friend with the waxed mustache have something to do with it, eh? Oh, yes, I see he did.”
Pembroke smiled at the way Colonel Berkeley read his face. Olivia spoke up with spirit.
“Papa, I hate that Mr. Ahlberg. Pray don’t have him here any more.”
But the Colonel looked quite crestfallen at this. Ahlberg amused him, and life was very, very dull for him.
“I hope you won’t insist on that, my dear,” he said, and Olivia answered:
“I can’t when you look that way.”
Much relieved, the Colonel began again. “And Madame Koller, I hear—ha! ha!”
“Papa!”
The note of dreadful warning in Olivia’s voice vexed Pembroke. But he could not explain and she would not understand.
Afterward, the two brothers walking along briskly toward home, Miles said:
“Do you know I believe Ahlberg is making love to Olivia on the sly!”
Pembroke felt an infinite disgust at this—Ahlberg with his waxed mustache, and his napkin tucked in his waistcoat, and his salmis and his truffles, making love to Olivia Berkeley!
“He doesn’t want Madame Koller to know it, though, I’ll warrant,” continued Miles. “Anybody can see his game there.”
“If he asks Olivia to marry him there will be another ear-boxing episode in this neighborhood,” said Pembroke with a short laugh.