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Belward had some beer brought. A half-dozen rustics stood gaping, not far away. He touched his horse with a heel. Saracen sprang towards them, and they fell back alarmed. Belward now drank his beer quietly, and asked question after question of the landlord, sometimes waiting for an answer, sometimes not a kind of cross-examination. Presently he dismounted.
Never before had Peppingham drawing-room heard a song like this; never before, never after, did any of Delia Gasgoyne's friends hear her sing as she did that night. And Lady Gravesend whispered for a week afterwards that Delia Gasgoyne sang a wild love song in the most abandoned way with that colonial Belward. Really a song of the most violent sentiment! There had been witchery in it all.
In the past he and Jock had been in more than one scrape together. He had learned from Mrs. Cawley that Gaston had known Jock in Canada. When Cawley had gone, Gaston turned to the other gentlemen present. "An original speech, upon my word, Belward," said Captain Maudsley. Mr. Warren Gasgoyne came. "You are expected to lunch or something to-morrow, Belward, you remember? Devil of a speech that!
Perhaps I had been mad myself I don't know. But my brain never seemed clearer than when I was playing that game. It was like a magnifying glass: and my eyes were so clear and strong that I could see the pores on their skin, and the drops of sweat breaking out on Jock's forehead when he yelled." A low moan came from Lady Belward.
Gaston Belward was different he had befriended her father. She had not singular scruples regarding men, for she despised most of them. She was not a Mademoiselle Cerise, nor a Madame Juliette, though they were higher on the plane of art than she; or so the world put it. She had not known a man who had not, one time or another, shown himself common or insulting.
"I say, Belward, I've seen It all, of course; I know It backwards, and I'm not squeamish, but that sounds flippant-that, with her." Gaston reached out and caught the boy's shoulder. "Don't do it, Cluny. Spare yourself. It couldn't come off. Agatha knows that, I fancy. She is a little sportsman. I might let you go and speak; but I think my chances are better than yours, Cluny.
His eyes followed the young man to the gate, and presently, with a quick lifting of the shoulders, he said: "Robert Belward!" Then added: "Impossible! But he is a Belward." He saw Gaston mount, then entered and went slowly up the aisle. He paused beside the tomb of that other Belward. His wrinkled hand rested on it. "That is it," he said at last. "He is like the picture of this Sir Gaston.
Most men placed similarly would have been so engaged with the main event that they had never thought of this other. But Belward was not excited. He was moving deliberately, prepared for every situation. He had a great game in hand, and he had no fear of his ability to play it. He suddenly stopped his horse, and threw the bridle to Jacques, saying: "I'll be back directly, Brillon."
He saw that Lady Belward had a sickly fear in her face, while Sir William had gone stern and hard. He went on: "It saved the situation, did that marriage; though it was no marriage you will say. Neither was it one way, and I didn't intend at the start to stand by it an hour longer than I wished.
After an instant he added, with a carelessness as much assumed as natural: "You may ring the bell, and tell Falby to come to my room. And because I am to appear at the flare-up to-night all in honour of the prodigal's son this matter is between us, and we meet as loving relatives. You understand my motives, Gaston Robert Belward?" "Thoroughly."
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