“We’ll leave that name out,” Ashley cried, sharply.  “Only a damned cad would introduce it.”

Though the movement with which Davenant swung his left arm through the darkness and with the back of his left hand struck Ashley on the mouth was so sudden as to surprise no one more than himself, it came with all the cumulative effect of twenty-four hours’ brooding.  The same might be said of the spring with which Ashley bounded on his adversary.  It had the agility and strength of a leopard’s.  Before Davenant had time to realize what he had done he found himself staggering—­hurled against the iron railing, which threatened to give way beneath his weight.  He had not taken breath when he was flung again.  In the dim light of the electrics he could see the glare in Ashley’s eyes and hear him panting.  Davenant, too, panted, but his wrath that had flared up like a rocket had already come down like a stick.

“Look here,” he stammered; “we—­we—­c-can’t do this sort of thing.”

Ashley fell back.  He, too, seemed to realize quickly the folly of the situation.  When he spoke it was less in anger than in protest.

“By God, you struck me!”

“I didn’t know it, Colonel.  If I did, we’re quits on it—­because—­because you insulted me.  Perhaps you didn’t know that.  I’m willing to think you didn’t—­if you’ll only believe that the whole thing has been a mistake—­a damned, idiotic, tom-fool mistake.”

The words had their effect.  Ashley fell back still farther.  There was a sinking of his head and a shrinking of his figure that told of reaction from the moment of physical excess.

A roadside bench was visible beneath an arc-lamp but a few yards away.  “Come and sit down,” Davenant said, hoarsely.  He found it difficult to speak.

Ashley stumbled along.  He sat down heavily, like a man spent with fatigue or drink.  With his elbows on his knees, he hid his face in his hands, while his body rocked.

Davenant turned away, walking down the Embankment.  He walked on for fifty or sixty yards.  He himself felt a curious sense of being battered and used up.  His heart pounded and the perspiration stood on his brow.  Putting his hand to his collar, he found his evening cravat awry and his waistcoat pulled out of shape.

He grasped the rail, as if for support, looking off with unseeing eyes into the night.  Lights along the river-side were reflected in the water; here and there a bridge made a long low arch of lamps; more lights sprinkled the suburban hills, making a fringe to the pall of stars.  They grew pale, even while he looked at them, as before a brighter radiance, and he knew that behind him the moon was coming up.  He thought of the moonrise of the previous evening, when Olivia Guion had walked with him to the gate and let her hand rest in his.  He recalled her words, as he had recalled them a hundred times that day, “The man I care for.”  He went back over each phase of their conversation, as though it was something he was trying to learn by heart.  He remembered her longing for her aunt de Melcourt.