“Oh, that!  My dear fellow, you are disquieting yourself in vain.  She knows as well as I do that that is a mere game.”  Eustace spoke scoffingly, looking over his brother’s head, ignoring his attitude.  “I assure you she is not so green as you imagine,” he said.  “It has been nothing but a game all through.”

“Nothing but a game!” Scott repeated the words slowly as if incredulous.  “Do you actually mean that?”

Sir Eustace laughed and took out his cigarettes.  “What do you take me for, you old duffer?  Think I should commit myself at this stage?  An old hand like me!  Not likely!”

Scott stood up before him, white to the lips.  “I take you for an infernal blackguard, if you want to know!” he said, speaking with great distinctness.  “You may call yourself a man of honour.  I call you a scoundrel!”

“What?” Eustace put back his cigarette-case with a smile that was oddly like a snarl.  “It looks to me as if you’ll have to have that lesson after all,” he said.  “What’s the matter with you now-a-days?  Fallen in love yourself?  Is that it?”

He took Scott by the shoulders, not roughly, but with power.

Scott’s eyes met his like a sword in a master-hand.  “The matter is,” he said, “that this precious game of yours has got to end.  If you are not man enough to end it—­I will.”

“Will you indeed?” Eustace shook him to and fro as he stood, but still without violence.  “And how?”

“I shall tell her,” Scott spoke without the smallest hesitation, “the exact truth.  I shall tell her—­and she will believe me—­precisely what you are.”

“Damn you!” said Sir Eustace.

With the words he shifted his grasp, took Scott by the collar, and swung him round.

“Then you may also tell her,” he said, his voice low and furious, “that you have had the kicking that a little yapping cur like you deserves.”

He kicked him with the words, kicked him thrice, and flung him brutally aside.

Scott went down, grabbing vainly at the bed to save himself.  His face was deathly as he turned it, but he said nothing.  He had said his say.

Sir Eustace was white also, white and terrible, with eyes of flame.  He stood a moment, glaring down at him.  Then, as though he could not trust himself, wheeled and strode to the door.

“And when you’ve done,” he said, “you can come to me for another, you beastly little cad!”

He went, leaving the door wide behind him.  His feet resounded along the passage and died away.  The distant waltz-music came softly in.  And Scott pulled himself painfully up and sat on the end of the bed, panting heavily.

Minutes passed ere he moved.  Then at last very slowly he got up.  He had recovered his breath.  His mouth was firm, his eyes resolute and indomitable, his whole bearing composed, as with that dignity that Dinah had so often remarked in him he limped to the door and passed out, closing it quietly behind him.