"Meantime you will leave this room,
or I will make you."
"Go to the devil!" said Beauchamp, again laying his hand on his dirk.
"You can claim fair play no more than a wolf," said Alec, keeping his
eye on his enemy's hand. "You had better go. I have only to ring this
bell and the sacrist will be here."
"That is your regard for your cousin! You would expose her to the
servants!"
"I will expose her to anything rather than to you. I have held my
tongue too long."
"And you will leave her lying here?"
"You will leave her lying here."
"That is your revenge, is it?"
"I want no revenge even on you, Beauchamp. Go."
"I will neither forestall nor forget mine," said Beauchamp, as he
turned and went out into the quadrangle.
When Alec came to think about it, he could not understand the ease of
his victory. He did not know what a power their first encounter had
given him over the inferior nature of Beauchamp, in whom the animal,
unsupported by the moral, was cowed before the animal in Forbes, backed
by the sense of right.
And above all things Beauchamp hated to find himself in an awkward
position, which certainly would have been his case if Alec had rung for
the sacrist.
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