"What's the matter with him?" asked one. "Nobody ever knew him like this before! What's he carrying on in that fashion for?"
"He's excited with getting off," said another. "And that bit of a scene outside there threw him off his balance. He should ha' been taken straight home. Nice lot he's got with him, too! We all know what yon barrister chap is--he can drink champagne like water, they say, and for the others--listen to that, now!" he added as a burst of excited talking came through the opened door. "He'll be in a fine fit state to go home to that daughter of his, I know, if that goes on."
"It mustn't go on," said another, and got up. "I'll go across to Bent's and get him to come over and take Cotherstone away. Bent's the only man that'll have any influence with him."
He went out and crossed the Market Place to Bent's office. But Bent was not there. By his advice Lettie had gone to stay with some friends until the recent proceedings were over in one way or another, and Bent himself, as soon as Cotherstone had left the court, had hurried away to catch a train to the town in which she was temporarily staying in order to tell her the news and bring her home. So the would-be doer-of-good went back disappointed--and as he reached the hotel, Cotherstone and the barrister emerged from it, parted at the door with evident great cordiality, and went their several ways. And Cotherstone, passing the man who had been to Bent's, stared him in the face and cut him dead.
"It's going to be war to the knife between Cotherstone and the town," remarked the ambassador, when he re-entered the big room and joined his own circle. "He passed me just now as if I were one of the paving-stones he trod on! And did you see his face as he went out?--egad, instead of looking as if he'd had too much to drink, he looked too sober to please me. You mind if something doesn't happen--yon fellow's desperate!"
"What should he be desperate about?" asked one of the group. "He's saved his own neck!"
"It was that shouting at him when he came out that did it," observed another man quietly. "He's the sort of man to resent aught like that. If Cotherstone thinks public opinion's against him--well, we shall see!"