The Pursuit Part 11

Landon laughed again.

"Does that touch you?" he cried. "He wouldn't tell you that. Not of how he schemed, and laid traps, and sunk pitfalls for me, to catch me, as I was caught. I'm no saint, Lord knows, but I've never sunk to that. I've had my game and paid my price, but, by G.o.d, I've never cheated!"

Aylmer's eyes still met his with level contempt.

"I know Despard, I've known him since boyhood," he answered. "He does not do these things."

Landon shrugged his shoulders.

"Of course! I'm down and you're all stamping me into the mud, lower and lower. You've all taken the accepted view, and when I cry out against it I'm told I've had my chance. So I did, but it was never a fair one."

"You have still six months in which to give your version to the King's Proctor if you have any new facts to support your statement," said Aylmer, coldly.

"Facts! How am I to get the benefit of facts when the other side can manufacture answers for them with a dollar for my every penny? I've supplied 'facts' to the King's Proctor till I'm sick of the sight of his office paper a.s.suring me that he has 'no evidence to justify my contentions.' I can give facts enough. It's a hearing I want--an impartial hearing!"

Aylmer shook his head.

"You got it," he said doggedly. "You got it!"

Landon rapped his stick upon the pavement.

"I tell you I didn't!" he cried. "I tell you that I could tell you things that would prove to you--yes, prove--that the whole job was got up by that scoundrel who's just left us--got up by him to steal my wife from me. I ask you to hear me; I appeal to you to listen to my side; I appeal to your sense of justice!"

Aylmer turned up the street.

"If you think there is anything to be gained by it, say on!" he answered. "You can walk with me as far as my quarters."

"You won't ask me in?" sneered Landon. "That's more than I can expect."

"Some of the fellows might look in on me--decent fellows," explained Aylmer, drily.

Landon gave a little gasp, halted, and leaned suddenly against the wall.

He looked up at his cousin. His lips worked, he stammered, he broke into a panting storm of sobs.

"I didn't deserve that! My G.o.d! I didn't deserve that!" he cried.

Aylmer looked down at him and a tiny thrill of compunction shot through him. He hesitated. He did not believe in Landon's protestations. He knew, in every instinct of his nature, that Landon was a scoundrel. But he began to remember that it had not always been so. Things that had brought them together as boys came back to him. His memory suddenly framed a picture of that wedding nine years ago. Landon had gone to meet his bride gallantly, adoringly, that day. He had loved her then. Yes, he could not have acted that, he had loved her then.

And Landon, watching narrowly his cousin's face, read the emotions as they chased each other across it as if they had been writ upon an open page. He hugged himself mentally.

"That's what knocks him!" he told himself triumphantly. "The abased ingenuous sinner! A little more of that and, Great Nicholas! I have him by the short hairs!"

He pulled himself together with a well-acted effort. He turned and drew back.

"You cur!" he cried. "You cur, to hit at a man who's down!"

Aylmer's tanned cheek showed through it a tiny flush. The dart had gone home.

"When you prove that an apology's due, I'll make it."

"In the street!" sneered Landon. "I'm to shout my wrongs, tell you all the intimate story of my provocation before the town. Thank you for nothing!"

Aylmer made a little movement of the hand which implied irritation.

"You can come to my quarters," he said, "but--"

"This evening?"

"No, this evening I'm dining out. You can come to my quarters. Until you give me reason to alter my opinion I don't introduce you to my friends.

Is that understood?"

Landon stood silent for another instant before he answered slowly.

"Yes," he agreed. "You've read and been told enough to excuse you. Yes, I'll come. And in half an hour you'll be begging my pardon, or--"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Or what?" said Aylmer, quietly.

"Or I shall know you've made up your mind not to be convinced."

And then a sudden taciturnity overtook him. He marched along at his cousin's side, his eyes bent upon the pavement, his brows contracted. He had the appearance of one who considers deeply. John Aylmer made no attempt to resume conversation. He concluded that Landon was either piecing together a story out of unpromising material which would leave considerable gaps to be filled or, which was more likely, evolving one out of his vivid imagination. In either case he was content to leave the issue to be ascertained in the privacy of his quarters.

They gained them uninterrupted. Aylmer made a sign towards a chair.

Landon, after an expressive glance towards the Tantalus on the sideboard, sat down. Aylmer did not take the hint; he was in no mood to offer hospitality to this man, even to the inconsiderable extent of a whisky and soda.

He looked at Landon.

"Well?" he demanded curtly.

Landon gave another look towards the sideboard.

"I've hinted once," he said, with a laugh which he tried to make genial and offhand. "This time I'll ask bluntly for it."

"For what?"

There was no encouragement in Aylmer's voice, and his eyes were hard and unrelenting.

"For a drink."

Aylmer shook his head.

"Suppose I hear your statement first," he suggested. "Then you can have a drink here, or elsewhere."

Landon rose to his feet with a dramatic jerk. He turned abruptly towards the door.

"That's enough, by G.o.d! that's enough!" he swore savagely. "I've taken your insolence once; I'll not take it again. I'm not fit to be offered a drink in your rooms; I'm to sit like some d.a.m.ned flunkey giving his character while you cross-examine me. I'll see you on the far side of h.e.l.l first."

He reached the door, halted, and stood with hand on it, looking round.