"I am not going outside," Sir Eustace said, with exasperating coolness. "If you want to talk, you can come in here and smoke with me."
"I must be alone with you," Scott said briefly. "There are two or three men in there."
His brother gave him a look of amused curiosity. "Do you want to do something violent then? There's plenty of room for a quiet talk in there without disturbing or being disturbed by anyone."
But Scott stood his ground. "I must see you alone for a minute," he said stubbornly. "You can come to my room, or I will come to yours,--whichever you like."
Sir Eustace shrugged his shoulders. "You are damned persistent. I don't know that I am specially anxious to hear what you have to say. In any case it can keep till the morning. I can't be bothered now."
Scott's hand grasped his arm. A queer gleam shone in his pale eyes. "Man," he said, "I think you had better hear me now."
Eustace looked down at him, half-sneering, half-impressed. "What a mule you are, Stumpy! Come along then if you must! But you had better mind how you go. I'm in no mood for trifling."
"Nor I," said Scott, with very unaccustomed bitterness.
He kept his hand upon his brother's arm as they turned. He leaned slightly upon him as they ascended the stairs. Eustace's room was the first they reached, and they turned into that.
Scott was very pale, but there was no lack of resolution about him as he closed the door and faced the elder man.
"Just this." Very steadily Scott made answer. "I want to know how far this matter has gone between you and Miss Bathurst. I want to know--what you are going to do."
"My intentions, eh?" Eustace's sneer became very pronounced as he put the question. He pulled forward a chair and sat down with an arrogant air as though to bring himself thus to Scott's level.
Scott's eyes gleamed again momentarily at the action, but he stood like a rock. "Yes, your intentions," he said briefly.
Sir Eustace's black brows went up, he looked him up and down. "Can you give me any reason at all why I should hold myself answerable to you?" he asked.
Scott's hands clenched as he stood. "I can," he said. "I regard Miss Bathurst as very peculiarly our charge--under our protection. We are both in a great measure responsible for her, though possibly--" he hesitated slightly--"my responsibility is greater than yours, in so far as I take it more seriously. I do not think that either of us is in a position to make love to her under existing circumstances. But that, I admit, is merely a matter of opinion. Most emphatically neither of us has the right to trifle with her. I want to know--and I must know--are you trifling with her, as you have trifled with Miss de Vigne for the past fortnight? Or are you in earnest? Which?"