The Man and the Moment | Page 4

been a complete fool."
Michael was heard to swear again.
"You have been inconsistent, too, because you did not even employ
your usual ruthless methods of doing what you pleased with them. You
have simply drifted into allowing this vile creature's cobwebs to cling
on to your whole existence until you are almost paralyzed, and it seems
to me that an immediate marriage with someone else is your only way
of escape. Such a waste of your life! Just analyze the position. You
have everything in the world, this glorious place--an old
name--money--prestige--and if your inclinations do run to the material
side of things instead of the intellectual, they are still successful in their
demonstration. No one has a better eye for a horse, or is a finer shot.
The best at driven grouse for your age, my boy, I have ever seen. You
are full of force, Michael, and ought to do some decent thing--instead
of which you spoil the whole outlook by fooling after this infernal
woman--and you have not now the pluck to cut the Gordian knot. She
will drag you to the lowest depths----"
Then he laughed. "And only think of that voice in one's ears all day
long! I would rather marry old Bessie at the South Lodge. She is
eighty-four, she tells me, and would soon leave you a widower."
The first ray of hope shot into Michael's bright blue eyes--and he
exclaimed with a kind of joy, as he seized Binko, his bulldog, by his fat,
engaging throat:
"Bessie! Old Bessie--By Jove, what an idea!--the very thing. She'd do it
for me like a shot, dear old body!"
Binko gurgled and slobbered in sympathy.
"She would be kind to you, too, Binko. She would not say she found
your hairs on every chair, and that you dribbled on her dress! She
would not tell your master that he left his cigarette-ash about, and she
hated the smell of smoke! She would not want this room for her
boudoir, she----"

Then he stopped his flow of words, suddenly catching sight of the
whimsical, sardonic smile upon his friend's face.
"Oh, Lord!" he mumbled, contritely. "I had forgotten you were here,
Henry. I am so jolly upset."
"This heartlessness about poor Maurice has finished you, eh?" Mr.
Fordyce suggested. He felt he might be gaining his end.
Michael covered his face with his hands.
"It seems so ghastly to think of marriage with the poor chap not yet
dead--I am fairly knocked over--it really is the last straw--but she will
cry and make a scene--and she has certainly arguments--and it will
make one feel such a cad to leave her."
"She wrote that--did she?--wrote of marriage and her husband's last
attack of hemorrhage in the same paragraph, I suppose. Michael, it is
revolting! My dear boy, you must break away from her--and then do try
to occupy yourself with more important things than women. Believe
me, they are all very well in their way and in their proper place--to be
treated with the greatest courtesy and respect as wives and
mothers--even loved, if you will, for a recreation--but as vital factors in
a man's real life! My dear fellow, the idea is ridiculous--that life should
be for his country and the development of his own soul----"
Michael Arranstoun laughed.
"Jolly old Mohammedan! You think women have none, I suppose!"
Henry Fordyce frowned, because it was rather true--but he denied the
charge.
"Nothing of the sort. Merely, I see things at their proper balance and
you cannot."
Michael leaned back in his chair; he was quieter for a moment.
"I only see what I want to see, Henry--and I am a savage--I cannot help

it--we have always been so. When I fancy a woman, I must obtain
her--when I want a horse, I must have it. It is always must--and we
have not done so badly. We still possess our shoulders and chins and
strength after eleven hundred years of it!" and he stretched out a
splendid arm, with a force which could have felled an ox.
An undoubtedly fine specimen of British manhood he looked, sitting
there in the June sunlight, which came in a shaft from the south
mullioned window in the corner beyond the great fireplace, the space
between occupied by a large picture of uncertain date, depicting the
landing of Mary, Queen of Scots, in her northern kingdom.
His eyes roamed to this.
"One of my ancestors was among that party," he said, pointing to a
figure. "He had just killed a Moreton and stolen his wife, that is why he
looks so perky--the fellow in the blue doublet."
Mr. Fordyce rose from his chair and fired his last shot.
"And now a female spider is going to paralyze the last Arranstoun, and
rule