Launce fell on his knees in the shadow of the trees. He was too frightened to move. He longed to hide his eyes or his ears, but he had to hold the restless little mice. His world was breaking and falling.
His uncle caught the raised hand, and his own was swung back for the answering blow. Launee could see Geoffrey’s face, steady and white as he waited for it, his uncle’s flushed and dark. “Are you mad, Geoffrey?” he asked, breathlessly.
There was no answer. To the frightened boy, unwillingly listening, it seemed a silence so dead that the thudding of his own heart must be heard. The night was calm again, yet the whole of life as he knew it was in disorder.
“Are you mad, Geoffrey?” asked William again, but in a different voice.
Geoffrey’s face seemed to be a little raised, a little paler, but again there was no answer.
William’s fist dropped; he stepped back, and passed his hand over his forehead in a bewildered way. “It’s a queer thing,” he said, rather unsteadily, “but I can’t hit you back. You’re like a younger brother, you know, Geoff. I can’t hit you.”
And at that a sort of fury seemed to flash into the younger man’s face. “You must,” he cried, hoarsely.
“Gad, but I can’t, my good fellow,” said William, with a twisted sort of smile, putting his hands in his pockets. “After all, ’tis not the first time we’ve hit each other.”
“Yes. But I daresay it was my fault. I had no right to question you.”
“I say,” cried Geoffrey, passionately, “you have no right to shame me so. I was in the wrong, and you know it. You’ve no right to keep me in the wrong forever.”
“D’you want me to call you out? Geoff, Geoff, what the devil’s the matter with you to-night?”
“The devil, perhaps, as you say. I’m not drunk. And strike you must, or that blow of mine will stand between us forever. If you of your generosity forget it, shall I—? Strike me, Will, strike me—hard.”
William raised his hand slowly, and slowly lowered it. “If you’re not drunk with wine, you are with something else, I think,” he said, roughly. “I cannot hit you when I’m not in a rage, and that’s the end of it. Go and get Simmons to pump on your head.”
“It’s not the end of it. Here, then, strike with this.” He caught up a heavy hunting-crop from the window-sill of the gun-room, and thrust it into William’s hand. “Strike with this.”