The Fighting Chance

These things--the outrageous liberty Siward had permitted himself in caricaturing him, the mortifying caprice of Sylvia for Siward on the day of the Shotover cup-drive--had left indelible impressions in a cold and rather heavy mind, slow to waste effort in the indulgence of any vital emotion.

In a few years indifference to Siward had changed to passive disapproval; that, again, to an emotionless dislike; and when the scandal at the Patroons Club occurred, for the first time in his life he understood what it was to fear the man he disliked. For if Siward had committed the insane imprudence which had cost him his title to membership, he had also done something, knowingly or otherwise, which awoke in Quarrier a cold, slow fear; and that fear was dormant, but present, now, and it, for the time being, dictated his attitude and bearing toward the man who might or might not be capable of using viciously a knowledge which Quarrier believed that he must possess.

For that reason, when it was not possible to avoid Siward, his bearing toward him was carefully civil; for that reason he dampened Major Belwether's eagerness to tell everybody all he knew about the shamelessly imprudent girl who had figured with Siward in the scandal, but whose identity the press had not discovered.

Silence was always desirable to Quarrier; silence concerning all matters was a trait inborn and congenially cultivated to a habit by him in every affair of life--in business, in leisure, in the methodical pursuits of such pleasures as a limited intellect permitted him, in personal and family matters, in public questions and financial problems.

He listened always, but never invited confidences; he had no opinion to express when invited. And he became very, very rich.

And over it all spread a thin membrane of vanity, nervous, not intellectual, sensitiveness; for all sense of humour was absent in this man, whose smile, when not a physical effort, was automatically and methodically responsive to certain fixed cues. He smiled when he said "Good morning," when declining or accepting invitations, when taking his leave, when meeting anybody of any financial importance, and when everybody except himself had begun to laugh in a theatre or a drawing-room. This limit to any personal manifestation he considered a generous one. And perhaps it was.

A sudden rain-squall, noisy against the casements, had darkened the room; then the electric lights broke out with a mild candle-like lustre, and Quarrier, standing beside Sylvia's chair, discovered it to be empty.

It was not until he had dressed for dinner that he saw her again, seated on the stairs with Marion Page--a new appearance of intimacy for both women, who heretofore had found nothing except a passing civility in common.