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Updated: June 4, 2025
Juliet smiled, but she did not explain. She felt that she was obeying Wingrave's wishes. "I should have recognized him anywhere," she answered simply. "I wonder what they are talking about. She seems so interested, and he looks so bored." Aynesworth looked at his watch. It was barely ten o'clock. "I am very glad to see him here this evening," he remarked.
I can seem him now, as though it were yesterday. Then Lady Ruth followed. She was quietly dressed; the effect she produced was excellent. She told her story. She hinted at the insult. She spoke of the check. She had imagined no harm in accepting Wingrave's invitation to tea. Men and women of the hunt, who were on friendly terms, treated one another as comrades. She spoke of the blow.
"The bar closes in ten minutes, sir!" the smoking room steward announced. The young man who had been the subject of Wingrave's remarks hastily ordered another drink, although he had an only half-emptied tumbler in front of him. Presently he stumbled out on to the deck. It was a dark night, and a strong head wind was blowing.
He did not reply to the inquiry as to his health. "You have brought the deed?" he asked. "Certainly, Sir Wingrave." The lawyer produced a roll of parchment from his bag. In response to Wingrave's gesture, he seated himself on the extreme edge of an adjacent seat. "I do not propose to read all that stuff through," Wingrave remarked.
Those past days of hideous monotony, of profitless, debasing toil, the long, sleepless nights, the very nightmare of life to a man of Wingrave's culture and habits, might well have poisoned his soul, have filled him with ideas such as these. But everything was different now!
Years afterwards, when his attitude towards them was often quoted as being one of the extraordinary features of an extraordinary personality, he remembered his perseverance on this occasion. "You have not spoken to a woman for so many years," he persisted. "Why not renew the experience? Nothing so humanizing, you know not even cigarettes." Wingrave's face fell, if possible into sterner lines.
A refrain of soft laughter followed the music. An after-dinner air pervaded the place. Wingrave's lip curled. "My lack of kinship with my fellows," he remarked, "is exceedingly well defined just now. I agree with the one philosopher who declared that 'eating and drinking are functions which are better performed in private." The two men went on to a theater.
The young man was unmoved. "She is Mademoiselle Violet," he declared. The coupe drew up before the great block of buildings in which was Wingrave's flat. The footman threw open the door. "Come in with me," Wingrave said. "I have something more to say to you." "I would rather not," the young man muttered, and would have slouched off, but Wingrave caught him by the arm.
A pale, tragic figure in his travel-stained clothes, and face furrowed with anxiety, he stood over them almost before they were aware of his presence. "Walter!" she cried, and sprang to her feet with extended hands. Wingrave's face darkened, and the shadow of evil crept into his suddenly altered expression. It was an abrupt awakening this, and he hated the man who had brought it about.
Both animals had evidently been ridden hard, and there was something ominous in the smile with which the head groom told him that Lady Ruth and Wingrave were in the house. "The two men had separate dens. Wingrave's was much the better furnished, as he was a young man of considerable taste, and he had also fitted it with sporting trophies collected from many countries.
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