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Read Ebook: The House of Spies by Deeping Warwick Michael A C Arthur C Illustrator
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Ebook has 1009 lines and 26054 words, and 21 pages
"I have dealt with all sorts of men in my time."
"Do you mean to frighten him into silence?"
"I shall try to treat him as a reasonable creature. It is no time for soft phrases."
She thought awhile, knitting up her forehead, and clasping her hands.
"Perhaps it will be best."
"Shall we go on? I may find Mr. Durrell at Stonehanger."
The essential weakness of a man of Anthony Durrell's character showed itself in the parley that followed between him and Jeremy Winter. The man of action and the man of the bookshelf were pitted against each other, though Jeremy, unlike most Englishmen, had subtlety and a very quick sense of humour. Nance had left them alone together in the stone-room, feeling vaguely sorry for the thin, white-headed figure that looked so ineffectual.
Jeremy went straight to the point with a merciless directness, much as he would have attacked with a sword. Durrell's hysterical verbosity was like the clumsy and excitable fencing of a greenhorn who has never learned to use his hands. He chose the high, ethical, magniloquent attitude, being sincere enough in his wild, foolish, visionary way. Jeremy thrust the egregious fanatic through and through with the brutal logic of his common sense.
"You need not stand and orate, Mr. Durrell. Take the facts and leave your theories. Here are you, a traitor to your country, with a noose dangling invitingly over your head."
Durrell flapped his arms.
"Bosh, man, bosh! We don't win things in this world in that way. Answer a straight question. Do you want your daughter to see you hanged?"
Durrell was disjointed, wild, hysterical. Jeremy kept up his body blows, driving home truth after truth till he had this poor, exclamatory piece of scholarly discontent battered into impotence. Durrell was a weak man. He was not built for pounding, for fighting toe to toe. He might have quarrelled and stormed with women. In the presence of a man like Jeremy he collapsed.
Winter softened a little when the enthusiast crumpled up into a chair.
"Mr. Durrell, sir, try to realise that we are your best friends. Have nothing more to do with this scoundrel De Rothan. You've got something valuable to live for in the shape of a daughter."
Durrell mumbled, and twisted this way and that. Jeremy had cowed him, and seized the dominating influence that De Rothan had held.
"I will think over what you have said, Mr. Winter. Heaven knows I would not countenance any violence to this young man."
Jeremy left him a beaten man, and went out into the garden to speak with Nance. She looked steady and sure of herself, and Jeremy respected the strength in her. It struck him that she would be able to dominate her father now that Durrell had been shocked into a kind of panic.
"Well?"
"You must forgive me if I have been a little rough with your father. Soft words are of no use at such a time."
"What does he say?"
"I think he has surrendered to us. I had to 'tarrify' him, as they say in these parts."
"If only he would keep to his books."
"That's it. Some men are made to live with books."
They walked through the shrubbery to the gate where David Barfoot was holding Mr. Winter's horse. Jeremy spoke what was in his mind.
"Go and play the daughter to him, my dear. I think he is in a mood to be managed. Some oldish men have to be treated like children."
"I will try."
"There must be plenty of good stuff in your father."
"Yes."
"I take you as my proof."
Cynicism, tinged with benevolence, such was Jeremy's attitude toward life. It was not very reasonable to expect a girl of spirit to hold a man of Anthony Durrell's nature in great love and reverence. Durrell needed hurdling in like an old sheep, and left to browse contentedly among his books.
Jeremy had already quarrelled twice that day, but he was yet to have a third quarrel laid upon his shoulders. This time it was with a woman, and the woman--Miss Rose Benham.
He found her at Rush Heath, energetic, inquisitive, and voluble, driving the inarticulate Jack Bumpstead into comers, and insisting upon examining Devil Dick in his stall. She had scolded the groom till he had involved himself in a maze of muddled contradictions, hunting him round and round with her cross-questions and her curiosity.
Jeremy's mouth went grim. His patience had borne up bravely, and he was in no mood to be teased by a managing and meddlesome young woman.
"Mr. Winter, what does all this mean?"
He handed his horse over to Jack Bumpstead, gave the groom one terrifying look, and bowed Miss Benham out of the stable.
"My dear young lady, I think you are a little excited."
He was deluged, but managed to divert the stream into a quiet corner of the garden.
"Miss Rose, you are inclined to call this affair your own. I warn you that it is nothing of the kind. I even forbid you to meddle with it."
"Excuse me, you will not."
"Expediency justifies me--and a man's honour."
Then Jeremy told what was very like an audacious lie.
"Miss Benham--Cousin Jasper will very shortly be married. And I am glad--because of the woman he will marry. Honour is concerned in it, even his very life. He is in great danger. One careless word may wreck everything."
Rose was white, furious, and astonished.
"My dear Miss Benham, sometimes two men desire to marry the same woman. It is not unusual. And one of the men may be desperate and unprincipled. The unprincipled man may take advantage of the other's sense of honour."
"But Jasper--is he in danger?"
"Very grave danger."
"Then why on earth don't you do something?"
Jeremy gave her one of his shrewd smiles.
"That is just what must not be done, for the moment. It will spoil my masterly inactivity if fools go cackling about the country. We are in a very delicate dilemma. I shall not explain it, as the less that is known about it--the better. You have it in your power to lose Jasper his life."
She flinched, as people had so often flinched in Jeremy's presence.
"Yes, you will be kind and cautious. You will say nothing. And for God's sake leave Jack Bumpstead alone, and not a word to Squire Christopher."
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