they fix it up.”
“Don't talk nonsense, Talbot Rutter, not to me. There was bad blood over there—you better look after them. There'll be trouble if you don't.”
The colonel tucked the edge of a rebellious ruffle inside his embroidered waistcoat and with a quiet laugh said: “St. George is attending to them.”
“St. George is as big a fool as you are about such things. Go, I tell you, and see what they are doing in there with the door shut.”
“But, my dear Mrs. Cheston,” echoed her host with a deprecating wave of his hand—“my Harry would no more attack a man under his own roof than you would cut off your right hand. He's not born that way—none of us are.”
“You talk like a perfect idiot, Talbot!” she retorted angrily. “You seem to have forgotten everything you knew. These young fellows here are so many tinder boxes. There will be trouble I tell you—go out there and find out what is going on,” she reiterated, her voice increasing in intensity. “They've had time enough to fix up a dozen Virginia reels—and besides, Kate is waiting, and they know it. Look! there's some one coming out—it's that young Teackle. Call him over here and find out!”
The doctor, who had halted at the door, was now scrutinizing the faces of the guests as if in search of some one. Then he moved swiftly to the far side of the room, touched Mark Gilbert, Harry's most intimate friend, on the shoulder, and the two left the floor.
Kate sat silent, a fixed smile on her face that ill concealed her anxiety. She had heard every word of the talk between Mrs. Cheston and the colonel, but she did not share the old lady's alarm as to any actual conflict. She would trust Uncle George to avoid that. But what kept Harry? Why leave her thus abruptly and send no word back? In her dilemma she leaned forward and touched the colonel's arm.
“You don't think anything is the matter, dear colonel, do you?”
“With whom, Kate?”
“Between Harry and Mr. Willits. Harry might resent it—he was very angry.” Her lips were quivering, her eyes strained. She could hide her anxiety from her immediate companions, but the colonel was Harry's father.
The colonel turned quickly: “Resent it here! under his own roof, and the man his guest? That is one thing, my dear, a Rutter never violates, no matter what the provocation. I have made a special exception in Mr. Willits's favor to-night and Harry knows it. It was at your dear father's request that I invited the young fellow. And then again, I hear the most delightful things about his own father, who though a plain man is of great service to his county—one of Mr. Clay's warmest adherents. All this, you see, makes it all the more incumbent that both my son and myself should treat him with the utmost consideration, and, as I have said, Harry understands this perfectly. You don't know my boy; I would disown him, Kate, if he laid a hand on Mr. Willits—and so should you.”
CHAPTER V
When Dr. Teackle shut the door of the ballroom upon himself and Mark Gilbert the two did not tarry long in the colonel's den, which was still occupied by half a dozen of the older men, who were being beguiled by a relay of hot terrapin that Alec had just served. On the contrary, they continued on past the serving tables, past old Cobden Dorsey, who was steeped to the eyes in Santa Cruz rum punch; past John Purviance, and Gatchell and Murdoch, smacking their lips over the colonel's Madeira, dived through a door leading first to a dark passage, mounted to a short flight of steps leading to another dark passage, and so on through a second door until they reached a small room level with the ground. This was the colonel's business office, where he conducted the affairs of the estate—a room remote from the great house and never entered except on the colonel's special invitation and only then when business of importance necessitated its use.
That business of the very highest importance—not in any way connected with the colonel, though of the very gravest moment—was being enacted here to-night, could be seen the instant Teackle, with Gilbert at his heels, threw open the door. St. George and Harry were in one corner—Harry backed against the wall. The boy was pale, but perfectly calm and silent. On his face was the look of a man who had a duty to perform and who intended to go through with it come what might. On the opposite side of the room stood Willits with two young men, his most intimate friends. They had followed him out of the ballroom to learn the cause of his sudden outburst, and so far had only heard Willits's side of the affair. He was now perfectly sober and seemed to feel his position, but he showed no fear. On the desk lay a mahogany case containing the colonel's duelling pistols. Harry had taken them from his father's closet as he passed through the colonel's den.
St. George turned to the young doctor. His face was calm and thoughtful, and he seemed to realize fully the gravity of the situation.
“It's no use, Teackle,” St. George said with an expressive lift of his fingers. “I have done everything a man could, but there is only one way out of it. I have tried my best to save Kate from every unhappiness to-night, but this is something much more important than woman's tears, and that is her lover's honor.”
“You mean to tell me, Uncle George, that you can't stop this!” Teackle whispered with some heat, his eyes strained, his lips twitching. Here he faced Harry. “You sha'n't go on with this affair, I tell you, Harry. What will Kate say? Do you think she wants you murdered for a foolish thing like this!—and that's about what will happen.”
The boy made no reply, except to shake his head. He knew what Kate would say—knew what she would do, and knew what she would command him to do, could she have heard Willits's continued insults in this very room but a moment before while St. George was trying to make him apologize to his host and so end the disgraceful incident.
“Then I'll go and bring in the colonel and see what he can do!” burst out Teackle, starting for the door. “It's an outrage that—”
“You'll stay here, Teackle,” commanded St. George—“right where you stand! This is no place for a father. Harry is of age.”
“But what an ending to a night like this!”
“I know it—horrible!—frightful!—but I would rather see the boy lying dead at my feet than not defend the woman he loves.” This came in a decisive tone, as if he had long since made up his mind to this phase of the situation.
“But Langdon is Harry's guest,” Teackle pleaded, dropping his voice still lower to escape being heard by the group at the opposite end of the room—“and he is still under his roof. It is never done—it is against the code. Besides”—and his voice became a whisper—“Harry never levelled a pistol at a man in his life, and this is not Langdon's first meeting. We can fix it in the morning. I tell you we must fix it.”
Harry, who had been listening quietly, reached across the table, picked up the case of pistols, handed it to Gilbert, whom he had chosen as his second, and in a calm, clear, staccato tone—each word a bullet rammed home—said:
“No—Teackle, there will be no delay until to-morrow. Mr. Willits has forfeited every claim to being my guest and I will fight him here and now. I could never look Kate in the face, nor would she ever speak to me again, if I took any other course. You forget that he virtually told Kate she lied,” and he gazed steadily at Willits as if waiting for the effect of his shot.
St. George's eyes kindled. There was the ring of a man in the boy's words. He had seen the same look on the elder Rutter's face in a similar situation twenty years before. As a last resort he walked toward where Willits stood conferring with his second.
“I ask you once more, Mr. Willits”—he spoke in his most courteous tones (Willits's pluck had greatly raised him in his estimation)—“to apologize like a man and a gentleman. There is no question in my mind that you have insulted your host in his own house and been discourteous to the woman he expects to marry, and that the amende honorable