At the uproar which he created a voice called out from upstairs and immediately she thrust her hand over his face.
"Shut your mouth, will you," she cried fiercely. "You'll have the whole place about my ears. Who the devil are you to come in and disturb an honest woman like this? Here! Wait in this room till you're sober. Then I'll have it out with you. Wait until I come back or it'll be the worse for you." She seized him by the arm and, opening a door in the lobby, pushed him roughly into a small sitting room.
"Wait here, I tell you, or you'll regret it all your born days," she shot at him, with a forbidding look, as she shut the door and enclosed him within the cold, uninviting chamber. She was gone before his fuddled brain had realised it and now he looked round the small cold parlour into which he had been thrust with a mixture of disgust and annoyance. Luscious memories recurred to him of other houses where he had moved in a whirl of mad music and wild, gay laughter, where bright lights had danced above the rich warmth of red plush and eager, undressed women had vied with each other for the richness of his favours. He had not been three minutes in the room before his drunken senses collected themselves and, as his mind realised the absurdity of having permitted himself a man of such experience to be shut up out of the way in this small cupboard, his will shaped itself towards a fiery resolution. They would not close him up in this box of a place with fine sport going on under his very nose! He moved forward and, with a crass affectation of caution, opened the door and tiptoed once more into the wide lobby, where a faint murmur of voices came to him from upstairs. Surreptitiously he looked around. There were three other doors opening out of the hall and he surveyed them with a mixture of expectation and indecision, until, choosing the one immediately opposite, and advancing carefully, he turned the handle and looked in. He was rewarded only by the cold darkness of a musty, unoccupied room. Closing this door, he turned to the one which adjoined it, but again he was disappointed, for he discovered here only the empty kitchen of the house; and swinging around with a snort of disgust, he plunged heedlessly into the last room.
Immediately he stood stock still, whilst the thrill of a delicious discovery ran through him. Before his eyes, seated reading a news-paper beside the comfortable fire, was a girl. Like a frantic searcher who has at last discovered treasure he uttered deep in his throat a low exultant cry and remained motionless, filling himself with her beauty, fascinated by the warm reflection of the firelight upon the soft curve of her pale cheek, noting her slender body, the shapely curve of her ankles, as, still unconscious of him, she held her feet to the fire. She was attractive and, seen through the haze of his distorted, craving senses, she became to him at once supremely beautiful and desirable. Slowly he advanced towards her. At the sound of his step she looked up, her face at once became disturbed, and she dropped her paper, saying quickly, "This room is private, reserved."
He nodded his head wisely, as he replied:
"That's right. It's reserved for me and you. Don't be afraid; nobody will disturb us." He sat down heavily on a chair close to her and tried to take her hand in his.
"But you can't come in here!" she protested in a panic. "You've no right to do such a thing. I'll I'll call the landlady."
She was as timid as a partridge and, he told himself greedily, as smooth and plump. He longed to bite the round contour of her shoulder.
"No! my dear," he said thickly. "I've seen her already. We had a nice long talk outside. She's not bonny, but she's honest. Yes! she's got my money and I've got you."
"It's impossible! You're insulting me," she cried out. "There's been a mistake, I never set eyes on you before, I'm expecting some one here any minute."
"He can wait till I've gone, dearie," he replied coarsely. "I like the look of you so well I would never let you go now!"
She jumped to her feet indignantly.
"I'll scream," she cried. "You don't know what you're, about. He'll kill you if he comes in."
"He can go to hell, whoever he is. I've got you now," shouted Matt, gripping her suddenly before she could shriek.
At that moment, when he hugged her close to his rampant body, whilst he bent down to her face, the door opened and, as he raised his head furiously to vituperate the intruder, he gazed straight into the eyes of his father. For what seemed an eternity of time the three figures remained motionless, as though the three emotions of surprise, anger and fear had petrified them into stone; then gradually, as Matt's arm relaxed, the limp figure of the girl slipped silently out of his embrace. Then as if this movement induced him to speak, yet without for an instant removing his eyes from his son's face, and in words as cold and penetrating as steel, Brodie said:
"Has he hurt ye, Nancy?"
The pretty barmaid of the Winton Arms came slowly up to him and tremblingly sobbed:
"Not much. It was nothing at all. He didna hurt me. Ye just came in time."
His lips compressed themselves firmly and his gaze became more fixed as he replied:
"Don't weep then, lassie! Run awa' out."
"Am I to wait in the house for ye, dear?" she whispered. "I will, if ye wish it."
"No!" he exclaimed, without an instant's hesitation. "Ye've had enough to thole. Run awa' hame." His eyes dilated and his hands opened and shut as he continued slowly, "I want to have this this gentleman to myself entirely to myself."
As she brushed past him he stroked her cheek, without looking at her, without relaxing a muscle of his face.
"Dinna hurt him," she whispered fearfully. "He didna mean anything. Ye can see he's not himself."
He did not reply, but when she had gone he shut the door quietly and came close up to his son. The two men looked at each other. This time Matt's eyes were not beaten down for he immediately lowered them and gazed deliberately at the floor. Through his intbriated mind a wild succession of thoughts whirled. The immediate
sinking fear he had experienced was replaced by a contrary emotion which rushed upwards in a fierce and bitter resentment. Was his father inevitably doomed to thwart him? The memory of each humiliation, every taunt, all the beatings he had endured from the other throughout his life seethed through his pot-valiant brain like white fire. Was he to submit patiently to another thrashing because
he had unwittingly obtruded upon his father's low woman? Mad with drink and frustrated lust, inflamed by the hot tide of his hate, he stood still, feeling blindly that now, at least he was beyond fear.
Brodie gazed at the lowered head of his son with a burning passion which at last burst the bonds of his iron control.
"You dog!" he hissed from between his clenched teeth. "You dared to do that! You dared to interfere with me and with what is mine. I warned ye to keep out of my way and now I'll strangle you."
He put out his great hands to clutch the other's neck but with a jerk Matt broke away from him, staggering to the other side of the table, from where he glared insanely at his father. His pale face was bedewed with sweat, his mouth worked convulsively, his whole body shook.
"You're as bad as me, you swine!" he yelled. "Don't think you can come it over me any longer. You wanted that bitch for yourself. That was all. But if I can't get her, I'll see that you don't. I've suffered enough from you. I'm going to suffer no more. Don't look at me like that!"
"Look at ye!" roared Brodie. "I'll do more than look at ye! I'll choke ye till I squeeze the breath out of your worthless body."
"Let me see you try," shouted the other, with a heaving breast. "You'll choke me none you'll grind me down no longer. You think I'm feared of you, but by God! I'm not. I'll show you something you don't expect."
A more brutal rage surged in Brodie at this unexpected defiance and his eye glared but, without speaking, he began slowly to advance around the table towards his son. Yet, strangely, Matthew did not move. Instead, with a wild shout of delirious exultation he plunged his hand into his hip pocket and withdrew a small derringer which he clutched fiercely in his grasp and pointed directly at his father.