“I’ve noticed,” he said, “that present-day puppies are greater at snarling than fighting.  I told you this story because you asked for it.  Now I’ll tell you one you didn’t ask for.  Max Wyndham transferred his attentions to Olga Ratcliffe, not because he cared for her, but because he wanted to put a spoke in my wheel.  Little Olga and I were very thick at one time.  You didn’t know that, I daresay?”

“I don’t believe it!” said Noel, breathing heavily.

Hunt-Goring inhaled a deep breath of smoke and blew it forth again in gentle puffs.  “Ah!  She never told you that?  She was always a secretive young woman.  Yes, we had some very jolly times together on the sly, till one day the doctor-fellow caught us kissing under the apple-trees.  Then of course she was afraid he’d split, so it was all up.”  He smiled insolently into Noel’s blazing eyes.  “I flatter myself that she missed those stolen kisses,” he said.  “I must go round one of these days—­when the dragon is out of ear-shot—­and make up for it.”

That loosed the devil in Noel at last.  He took a swift step forward.  His right hand gripped his riding-whip.

“If you ever go near her again,” he said, “I’ll break every bone in your body!  You liar—­you damned blackguard—­you cur!”

Full into Hunt-Goring’s face he hurled his furious words.  He was more angry in that moment than he had ever been in his life.  The force of his anger carried him along as a twig borne on a racing current.  Till that instant he had forgotten that he carried his riding-whip.  The sudden remembrance of it flashed like a streak of lightning through his brain.

Before he knew what he was doing, almost as if a will swifter than his own were at work, he had sprung upon Hunt-Goring and struck him a swinging blow across the shoulders.

Only that one blow, however!  For Hunt-Goring was not an easy man to thrash.  Ten years before, he had been the strongest man in his regiment, and he was powerful still.  Before Noel could strike again, he was locked in an embrace that threatened to crush him to a pulp.

In awful silence they strained and fought together, and in a second or two it came to Noel through the silence that he had met his match.  The Irish blood in him leaped exultant to the fray.  He laughed a breathless laugh, and braced his muscles to a fierce resistance.  He had been spoiling for a fight with this man for a long time.

But it was impossible to do anything scientific in that constrictor-like hold, and as they swayed and strove he began to realize that unless he could break it, it would very speedily break him.  Hunt-Goring’s face, purple and devilish, with lips drawn back and teeth clenched upon his cigarette, glared into his own.  There was something unspeakably horrible about the eyes.  They turned upwards, showing the whites all shot with blood.

“The man’s a maniac!” was the thought that ran through Noel’s brain.