He had long known it must come, and had said to himself more than once that “to every man upon this earth death cometh, soon or late;” but being human, he had put off the evil day, having always thought that it must, of necessity, be evil.  But now it was different.  What he had said to the Duke, and what the Duke had said to him, that evening on the yacht when they were talking about marriage, was exactly what he had always expected to occur.  The day, he said, must come when the enterprising mamma will get the better of Silas B. Barker junior.  The girl of the season, with her cartload of bouquets slung all over her, her neat figure, her pink-and-white complexion and her matchless staying powers in a ballroom, will descend upon the devoted victim Barker, beak and talons, like the fish-hawk on the poor, simple minnow innocently disporting itself in the crystal waters of happiness.  There will be wedding presents, and a breakfast, and a journey, and a prospect of everlasting misery.  All these things, thought he, must come to every man in time, unless he is a saint, or an author, or has no money, and therefore they must come to me; but now it was different.  If there is to be any fishing, he thought, I will be the hawk, and the minnow may take its chance of happiness.  Why should the minnow not be happy?  I am a hawk; well—­but I am a very good hawk.

But these reflections were not what occupied his mind as he sat with his second cigar in the reading-room of his quiet club.  These things he had elaborated in his brain at least three days ago, and they had now taken the form of a decision, against which there could be no appeal, because it was pleasant to the ego of Mr Barker.  Judgments of that sort he never reversed.  He had fully determined to be the hawk, he had picked out his minnow, and he was meditating the capture of his prey.  A great many people do as much as that, and discover too late that what they have taken for a minnow is an alligator, or a tartar, or a salamander, or some evil beast that is too much for their powers.  This was what Mr. Barker was afraid of, and this was what he wished to guard against.  Unfortunately he was a little late in the selection of his victim, and he knew it.  He had determined to marry the Countess Margaret.

He knew perfectly well that Claudius had determined upon the very same thing, and he knew that Claudius was intimate, to say the least of it, with the woman he loved.  But Barker had made up his mind that Claudius had been refused, and had accepted the Platonic position offered him by the Countess, merely because he had not the strength to leave her.  “Just like the vanity of a fellow like that,” he argued, “not to be willing to believe himself beaten.”  He had drawn the whole situation in his mind entirely to his own satisfaction.  If Claudius could only be removed, any other man would have as good a chance.  The other man is Barker—­therefore, remove Claudius at once.  Remove him!  Away with him!  Let his place know him no more!