“Let us change the subject, Talbot, or we will both forget ourselves.  If you have anything to say to me that will benefit Harry and settle the difficulty between him and you, I will meet you more than half-way, but I give you fair warning that the apology must come from you.  You have—­if you will permit me to say it in my own house—­behaved more like a brute than a father.  I told you so the night you turned him out in the rain for me to take care of, and I told you so again at the club when you tried to make a laughing-stock of him before your friends—­and now I tell you so once more!  Come!—­let us drop the subject—­what may I offer you to drink?—­you must be rather chilled with your ride in.”

Rutter was about to flare out a denial when his better judgment got the best of him; some other tactics than the ones he had used must be brought into play.  So far he had made but little headway against Temple’s astounding coolness.

“And I am to understand, then, that you are going to keep him here?” he demanded, ignoring both his host’s criticisms and his proffered hospitality.

“I certainly am”—­he was abreast of him now, his eyes boring into his—­“just as long as he wishes to stay, which I hope will be all his life, or until you have learned to be decent to him.  And by decency, I mean companionship, and love, and tenderness—­three things which your damned, high-toned notions have always deprived him of!” His voice was still under control, although the emphasis was unmistakable.

Rutter made a step forward, his eyes flashing, his teeth set: 

“You have the impertinence, sir, to charge me with——­”

“—­Yes!—­and it’s true and you know it’s true!”—­the glance, steady as a rifle, had not wavered.  “No, you needn’t work yourself up into a passion—­and as for your lordly, dictatorial airs, I am past the age when they affect me—­keep them for your servants.  By God!—­what a farce it all is!  Let us talk of something else—­I am tired of it!”

The words cut like a whip, but the Lord of Moorlands had come to get his son, not to fight St. George.  Their sting, however, had completely changed his plans.  Only the club which Gorsuch had put into his hands would count now.

“Yes—­a damnable farce!” he thundered, “and one played by a man with beggary staring him straight in the face, and yet to hear you talk one would think you were a Croesus!  You mortgaged this house to get ready money, did you not?” He was not sure, but this was no time in which to split words.

St. George turned quickly:  “Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

“Yes!  Do you suppose I would let Harry sneak around corners to avoid his creditors?”

The colonel gave an involuntary start, the blood mounting to the roots of his hair, and as suddenly paled: 

“You tell me that—­you dared to—­pay Harry’s debts?” he stammered in amazement.

“Dared!” retorted St. George, lifting his chin contemptuously.  “Really, Talbot, you amuse me.  When you set that dirty hound Gadgem on his trail, what did you expect me to do?—­invite the dog to dinner?—­or have him sleep in the house until I sold furniture enough to get rid of him?”