"Now, my boy, you mustn't go on like this."
"Well, she boxed my ears, Gran, so I only boxed hers, and then she boxed
mine again."
"Strike a lady? That'll never do! Have you begged her pardon?"
"Not yet."
"Then you must go and do it at once. Come along."
"But she began it, Gran; and she had two to my one."
"My dear, it was an outrageous thing to do."
"Well, she lost her temper; and I didn't lose mine."
"Come along."
"You come too, then, Gran."
"Well--this time only."
And they had gone hand in hand.
Here--where the Waverley novels and Byron's works and Gibbon's Roman
Empire and Humboldt's Cosmos, and the bronzes on the mantelpiece, and
that masterpiece of the oily school, 'Dutch Fishing-Boats at Sunset,'
were fixed as fate, and for all sign of change old Jolyon might have
been sitting there still, with legs crossed, in the arm chair, and domed
forehead and deep eyes grave above The Times--here they came, those two
grandchildren. And Jolly said:
"I saw you and that fellow in the Park."
The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some satisfaction;
she ought to be ashamed!
"Well?" she said.
Jolly was surprised; he had expected more, or less.
"Do you know," he said weightily, "that he called me a pro-Boer last
term? And I had to fight him."
"Who won?"
Jolly wished to answer: 'I should have,' but it seemed beneath him.
"Look here!" he said, "what's the meaning of it? Without telling
anybody!"
"Why should I? Dad isn't here; why shouldn't I ride with him?"
"You've got me to ride with. I think he's an awful young rotter."
Holly went pale with anger.
"He isn't. It's your own fault for not liking him."
And slipping past her brother she went out, leaving him staring at the
bronze Venus sitting on a tortoise, which had been shielded from him so
far by his sister's dark head under her soft felt riding hat. He
felt queerly disturbed, shaken to his young foundations. A lifelong
domination lay shattered round his feet. He went up to the Venus and
mechanically inspected the tortoise.
Why didn't he like Val Dartie? He could not tell. Ignorant of family
history, barely aware of that vague feud which had started thirteen
years before with Bosinney's defection from June in favour of Soames'
wife, knowing really almost nothing about Val he was at sea. He just did
dislike him. The question, however, was: What should he do? Val Dartie,
it was true, was a second-cousin, but it was not the thing for Holly
to go about with him. And yet to 'tell' of what he had chanced on was
against his creed. In this dilemma he went and sat in the old leather
chair and crossed his legs. It grew dark while he sat there staring out
through the long window at the old oak-tree, ample yet bare of leaves,
becoming slowly just a shape of deeper dark printed on the dusk.