“You don’t like her,” he said, and his manner was that of a man dealing with a matter of fact.  “Why do you talk about her?”

He had got away again—­quite away.

An ugly flush shot over Anstruthers’ face.  There was one more thing to say—­whether it was idiotic to say it or not.  Things can always be denied afterwards, should denial appear necessary—­and for the moment his special devil possessed him.

“I do not like her!” And his mouth twisted.  “Do I not?  I am not an old woman.  I am a man—­like others.  I chance to like her—­too much.”

There was a short silence.  Mount Dunstan broke it.

“Then,” he remarked, “you had better emigrate to some country with a climate which suits you.  I should say that England—­for the present—­does not.”

“I shall stay where I am,” answered Anstruthers, with a slight hoarseness of voice, which made it necessary for him to clear his throat.  “I shall stay where she is.  I will have that satisfaction, at least.  She does not mind.  I am only a racketty, middle-aged brother-in-law, and she can take care of herself.  As I told you, she has the spirit of the huntress.”

“Look here,” said Mount Dunstan, quite without haste, and with an iron civility.  “I am going to take the liberty of suggesting something.  If this thing is true, it would be as well not to talk about it.”

“As well for me—­or for her?” and there was a serene significance in the query.

Mount Dunstan thought a few seconds.

“I confess,” he said slowly, and he planted his fine blow between the eyes well and with directness.  “I confess that it would not have occurred to me to ask you to do anything or refrain from doing it for her sake.”

“Thank you.  Perhaps you are right.  One learns that one must protect one’s self.  I shall not talk—­neither will you.  I know that.  I was a fool to let it out.  The storm is over.  I must ride home.”  He rose from his seat and stood smiling.  “It would smash up things nicely if the new beauty’s appearance in the great world were preceded by chatter of the unseemly affection of some adorer of ill repute.  Unfairly enough it is always the woman who is hurt.”

“Unless,” said Mount Dunstan civilly, “there should arise the poor, primeval brute, in his neolithic wrath, to seize on the man to blame, and break every bone and sinew in his damned body.”

“The newspapers would enjoy that more than she would,” answered Sir Nigel.  “She does not like the newspapers.  They are too ready to disparage the multi-millionaire, and cackle about members of his family.”

The unhidden hatred which still professed to hide itself in the depths of their pupils, as they regarded each other, had its birth in a passion as elemental as the quakings of the earth, or the rage of two lions in a desert, lashing their flanks in the blazing sun.  It was well that at this moment they should part ways.