of in that way and you know it. Now don't be foolish—stay here with Uncle George and the doctor until you cool down. There are the best of reasons why I should dance the reel with Miss Kate, but I can't explain them now.”
“Neither am I, Mr. Harry Rutter, accustomed to be spoken to in that way by you or anybody else. I don't care a rap for your explanations. Get out of my way, or you'll be sorry,” and he sprang one side and flung himself out of the room before Harry could realize the full meaning of his words.
St. George saw the flash in the boy's eyes, and stretching out his hand laid it on Harry's arm.
“Steady, my boy! Let him go—Kate will take care of him.”
“No! I'll take care of him!—and now!” He was out of the room and the door shut behind him before Temple could frame a reply.
St. George shot an anxious, inquiring look at Teackle, who nodded his head in assent, and the two hurried from the room and across the expanse of white crash, Willits striding ahead, Harry at his heels, St. George and the doctor following close behind.
Kate stood near the far door, her radiant eyes fixed on Harry's approaching figure—the others she did not see. Willits reached her first:
“Miss Kate, isn't this my dance?” he burst out—“didn't you promise me?”
Kate started and for a moment her face flushed. If she had forgotten any promise she had made it certainly was not intentional. Then her mind acted. There must be no bad blood here—certainly not between Harry and Willits.
“No, not quite that, Mr. Willits,” she answered in her sweetest voice, a certain roguish coquetry in its tones. “I said I'd think it over, and you never came near me, and so Harry and I are—”
“But you DID promise me.” His voice could be heard all over the room—even the colonel, who was talking to a group of ladies, raised his head to listen, his companions thinking the commotion was due to the proper arranging of the dance.
Harry's eyes flashed; angry blood was mounting to his cheeks. He was amazed at Willits's outburst.
“You mean to contradict Miss Kate! Are you crazy, Willits?”
“No, I am entirely sane,” he retorted, an ugly ring in his voice.
Everybody had ceased talking now. Good-natured disputes over the young girls were not uncommon among the young men, but this one seemed to have an ominous sound. Colonel Rutter evidently thought so, for he had now risen from his seat and was crossing the room to where Harry and the group stood.
“Well, you neither act nor talk as if you were sane,” rejoined Harry in cold, incisive tones, inching his way nearer Kate, as if to be the better prepared to defend her.
Willits's lip curled. “I am not beholden to you, sir, for my conduct, although I can be later on for my words. Let me see your dancing-card, Miss Kate,” and he caught it from her unresisting hand. “There—what did I tell you!” This came with a flare of indignation. “It was a blank when I saw it last and you've filled it in, sir, of your own accord!” Here he faced Harry. “That's your handwriting—I'll leave it to you, Mr. Temple, if it isn't his handwriting.”
Harry flushed scarlet and his eyes blazed as he stepped toward the speaker. Kate shrank back in alarm—she had read Harry's face and knew what was behind it.
“Take that back, Langdon—quick! You are my guest, but you mustn't say things like that here. I put my name on the card because Miss Kate asked me to. Take it back, sir—NOW!—and then make an humble apology to Miss Seymour.
“I'll take back nothing! I've been cheated out of a dance. Here—take her—and take this with her!” and he tore Kate's card in half and threw the pieces in his host's face.
With the spring of a cat, Harry lunged forward and raised his arm as if to strike Willits in the face: Willits drew himself up to his full height and confronted him: Kate shrivelled within herself, all the color gone from her cheeks. Whether to call out for help or withdraw quietly, was what puzzled her. Both would concentrate the attention of the whole room on the dispute.
St. George, who was boiling with indignation and disgust, but still cool and himself, pushed his way into the middle of the group.
“Not a word, Harry,” he whispered in low, frigid tones. “This can be settled in another way.” Then in his kindest voice, so loud that all could hear—“Teackle, will you and Mr. Willits please meet me in the colonel's den—that, perhaps, is the best place after all to straighten out these tangles. I'll join you there as soon as I have Miss Kate safely settled.” He bent over her: “Kate, dear, perhaps you had better sit alongside of Mrs. Rutter until I can get these young fellows cooled off”—and in a still lower key—“you behaved admirably, my girl—admirably. I'm proud of you. Mr. Willits has had too much to drink—that is what is the matter with him, but it will be all over in a minute—and, Harry, my boy, suppose you help me look up Teackle,” and he laid his hand with an authoritative pressure on the boy's arm.
The colonel had by this time reached the group and stood trying to catch the cue. He had heard the closing sentence of St. George's instructions, but he had missed the provocation, although he had seen Harry's uplifted fist.
“What's the matter, St. George?” he inquired nervously.
“Just a little misunderstanding, Talbot, as to who was to dance with our precious Kate,” St. George answered with a laugh, as he gripped Harry's arm the tighter. “She is such a darling that it is as much as I can do to keep these young Romeos from running each other through the body, they are so madly in love with her. I am thinking of making off with her myself as the only way to keep the peace. Yes, you dear girl, I'll come back. Hold the music up for a little while, Talbot, until I can straighten them all out,” and with his arm still tight through Harry's, the two walked the length of the room and closed the far door behind them.
Kate looked after them and her heart sank all the lower. She knew the feeling between the two men, and she knew Harry's hot, ungovernable temper—the temper of the Rutters. Patient as he often was, and tender-hearted as he could be, there flashed into his eyes now and then something that frightened her—something that recalled an incident in the history of his house. He had learned from his gentle mother to forgive affronts to himself; she had seen him do it many times, overlooking what another man would have resented, but an affront to herself or any other woman was a different matter: that he would never forgive. She knew, too, that he had just cause to be offended, for in all her life no one had ever been so rude to her. That she herself was partly to blame only intensified her anxiety. Willits loved her, for he had told her so, not once, but several times, although she had answered him only with laughter. She should have been honest and not played the coquette: and yet, although the fault was partly her own, never had she been more astonished than at his outburst. In all her acquaintance with him he had never lost his temper. Harry, of course, would lay it to Willits's lack of breeding—to the taint in his blood. But she knew better—it was the insanity produced by drink, combined with his jealousy of Harry, which had caused the gross outrage. If she had only told Willits herself of her betrothal and not waited to surprise him before the assembled guests, it would have been fairer and spared every one this scene.
All these thoughts coursed through her mind as with head still proudly erect she crossed the room on the colonel's arm, to a seat beside her future mother-in-law, who had noticed nothing, and to whom not a syllable of the affair would have been mentioned, all such matters being invariably concealed from the dear lady.
Old Mrs. Cheston, however, was more alert; not only had she caught the anger in Harry's eyes, but she had followed the flight of the torn card as its pieces fell to the floor. She had once been present at a reception given by a prime minister when a similar fracas had occurred. Then it was a lady's glove and not a dancing-card which was thrown in a rival's face, and it was a rapier that flashed and not a clenched fist.
“What was the matter over there, Talbot?” she demanded, speaking from behind her fan when the colonel came within hearing.