“Aha, then you are in love!” cried Humphrey. “There is nothing men like so much as generalizing about women; all women are alike, except the one they love. She is the exception to all rules. And there is no lover so pure and holy in his adoration as a reformed voluptuary. You love her, Tasset!”

“Very well then, I love her. I’m man enough to admit it,” said Roger and was startled and somewhat alarmed to hear himself.

“Spoken like a man!” cried Humphrey.

“I don’t believe you,” said Solly, heatedly. “Just a few minutes ago you described your attentions to her as a mild buzz.”

“Well, did you expect me to blab out my private feelings?” said Roger.

“That’s what you’ve just pretended to do,” said Solly, “but I don’t believe you love her. How could you love her? You haven’t got it in you to love anybody. The only thing that a crass, ill-conditioned yahoo like you could want with a girl like Griselda is-is-is her body.” He finished weakly, for he had wanted a strong word, and could not immediately think of one which was not also too coarse for the occasion. “You just want to seduce her,” he said, and sat back in his chair looking hot and rumpled and somewhat wet about the eyes.

Roger stood up. “By God, Bridgetower, there are some things I won’t stand,” said he. “Get up on your feet.”

So it was to be a fight! Solly was no fighter, but he did not lack courage; he would let Tasset hammer him to a pulp before he would take back a word of what he had said. He stood up, throwing off his coat as he did so, and confronted Roger. Humphrey Cobbler skipped nimbly behind a table, and Hector, his heart in his mouth, followed him.

The ceiling was low, and dipped at the corners of the room, for it took the shape of the roof of the house; the light was bad, for it came from a single lamp which threw a patch of brilliance on the ceiling and a poor light everywhere else. There was a small rug on the slippery floor, and a good deal of furniture everywhere. It was not an ideal battleground.

Roger was in good condition, and knew how to box. But when he took a boxing posture he found that Solly had placed himself just out of reach, and was holding his fists at waist level, and clearly intended to do nothing. Who was to strike the first blow?

They might have stood glaring at one another until good sense took hold of them if Solly had not been so frightened. But he was convinced that Roger would do him desperate harm—might indeed kill him—and he was determined to make one gesture, one final Heine-like act of defiance, before the slaughter began. So he drew up his lip in a sneer, and laughed in Roger’s face.

This had the desired effect. Roger stepped lightly toward him, and hit him on the nose, twice in the ribs and once on the jaw, with such speed that it seemed to Solly that the blows all landed at once. But with a great effort he struck at Roger’s diaphragm, having some dim notion that a blow there would be very telling. The treacherous rug slipped, and as he fell he jerked up his head and struck his adversary under the chin with it, causing Roger to bite his tongue painfully. They fell to the ground with a crash, and lay there, moaning from their injuries.

As the noise subsided a sound from below made itself heard; it was not loud, but it was persistent; it was the tapping of a stick.

“Oh God,” said Solly, getting up; “it’s Mother.” He hurried to the door. “It’s all right, Mother,” he called; “something fell down; nothing wrong.” And then, foolishly inspired, he added, “I hope we didn’t wake you?”

His mother’s voice came tremulously up the stairs. “Oh, lovey, I’m so frightened. I thought the whole roof was coming down.”

“No, no, Mother; no trouble at all. You’d better go back to bed.”

Even more tremulously came the reply. “I can’t; I’m on the sofa in the hall. I feel so weak. I think I need one of my white tablets.”

“I’ll have to go to her,” said Solly.

“Better clean the blood off your face, first,” said Humphrey.

It was Hector who acted. He dipped his handkerchief in the cold water in the bottom of the bowl which held ice for the drinks, and cleaned away the jammy ooze which had gathered under Solly’s nostrils.

“We had better go home now,” he said.

“No, no, that would convince Mother that something dreadful had happened. Anyhow it will take me some time to get her to her room if she has one of her weak spells. Stay here and keep quiet till I come back.” Solly hurried down the stairs on tiptoe.

Roger had risen from the floor and was sitting with his tongue held between two cubes of ice, like the meat in a sandwich. Humphrey made as though to prepare him another drink, but Roger shook his head; a man who has bitten his tongue shrewdly feels a sickness all through his body which demands rest and quietness, not drinks. So Humphrey made a drink for himself and one for Hector, and sat down. Although they could not see it, all three were oppressively conscious of the pill-taking, the laboured breathing, the mute reproach, and the mordant old comedy of mother-and-son which was being played out at the foot of the stairs.

For some time nobody spoke. After perhaps five minutes Roger rose and went into Solly’s bedroom, which was behind the room in which they were, and finding a washbasin there he set to work to relieve his swollen tongue by holding it under the cold tap.

Hector and Humphrey looked at each other.

“I don’t like this,” said Hector.

“No. Bad business,” said Humphrey. “But probably we’ll be able to talk some sense into them when they come back.” He had had the fun of provoking a quarrel; he now looked forward with appetite to the fun of patching it up.

“I don’t mean these two fellows,” said Hector; “I mean that I don’t like Miss Webster to be mixed up in a thing like this—rough talk and fighting.”

“Oh, heavens, don’t worry about that. She’ll probably never hear of it. Not that she would mind, I suppose; girls rather like to be fought over. Not that this was a fight a girl could take much pride in. But don’t worry. Nothing will come of it.”

“How do you know that something has not come of it already?”

“Meaning—?”

“They talked—they talked quite cold-bloodedly of—well, of intimacy with her.”

“Oh well, that’s just talk, you know. You know how lads are.”

“Yes, I think I do. But that sort of talk disgusts me, and makes me angry, too. I wanted to knock their heads together.”

“I don’t know that I’d try that, if I were you.”

“But we are older than they are. Surely one of us should take a stand?”

“What about? I don’t see what you are getting at.”

“Well,” said Hector patiently, as though explaining the binomial theorem to a pupil, “they shouldn’t talk that way about a girl’s honour. A girl’s honour is like a man’s reputation for honesty—probably more easily destroyed. It is sacred. Men should treat it with reverence.”

“Aha, so that’s your notion, is it? Well, if I recall correctly, I was the first one to suggest that Griselda’s honour might have been a little blown upon. Now, in point of fact, I don’t believe that. But I wanted to find out what Tasset was up to, and I thought maybe I could goad him into an admission or a display of some kind. And I did.”

“Well, then I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

“I’m not, though. You’re not what could be called an original moralist, are you?”

“I know the difference between right and wrong, I hope.”

“How nice for you. I don’t.”

“I suppose it is nothing to you that a beautiful and innocent young girl might lose her honour?”

“Listen, Mackilwraith; do me a favour, will you; stop calling it her honour. You give me the creeps. Tasset has rather a reputation; I just wanted to find out what he was up to, if I could.”

“He leads an immoral life, does he?”

“By your standards, I suppose he does.”