have imagined himself secure directly the official badgering ceased. But the trouble more probably was that nobody, except Harmington, not even Vincent himself, really appreciated how much his resistance during the weary months of the rains had taken out of the boy. Anyhow, when everything looked like plain sailing, just on the eve of his going off on tour when he would probably not meet Harmington for several weeks, he cut a most imperial voluntary. It was at a dinner which Bruce gave; and for months afterwards he cursed himself for having been such a fool as to ask the two together. Bridge had finished, and the party was just about to break up when the talk drifted on to fox-hunting. Cruikshank, Lathom, and Harmington, who were all three very keen, began to discuss the old topic of why some people can always manage to get to the top of the hunt. Vincent, who was erroneously persuaded that he knew a great deal about all matters connected with horses, chipped into the talk with more vigour than discretion. Some of his opinions were purely fatuous, and Cruikshank and Lathom snubbed him mildly. Harmington was strangely gentle; he positively insisted on giving the boy a large share of the conversation. By judicious en-, couragement he got him to say some fairly idiotic things. But it was not till Vincent had announced in a loud confident What pack?" Harmington replied, as though explaining something to a child. "Or are you one of those fortunate people who, when they are on leave, just sample the best of Leicestershire and Northamptonshire?" Vincent's colour deepened. He hesitated very appreciably; then blurted out his answer like a sulky schoolboy "I've never hunted in England." Harmington's eyebrows went up slightly. "Indeed," he drawled. "Pleasure in store for you when you get the chance. But you really oughtn't to keep that tip about getting to the top of a hunt all to yourself. Out with it." Bruce made an effort to interfere, and Mrs Lathom ostentatiously got up to go; but it was too late. Vincent took It was pitiable. For, having no notice of his host's sugges- let himself go, he seemed bent tion that he should help him- on making a complete job of self to a drink; and although it. He apparently forgot that Harmington acknowledged Mrs Mrs Lathom and Mrs CruikLathom's move by standing shank were present. He became up, the smile with which he hysterically abusive, very foulmet Vincent's angry stare was mouthed, and entirely out of not intended to allow the boy hand. to escape from losing his temper. 66 'It's getting horribly late" Mrs Lathom began. But Vincent's voice, rather higher than usual and a little shaky, interrupted her. "It's quite simple," he declared, with a pathetic attempt at sarcasm. "Don't let the jumps worry you so much." Again Harmington's eyebrows went up slightly. "Thank you," he answered gravely. "I must endeavour to remember that profound advice." For a moment, while Mrs Lathom, Cruikshank, Lathom, and Bruce sought desperately for something to say, while Harmington regarded his furious victim with amused contempt, while Vincent himself went from red to white, only the noise of insects calling in the hot night outside broke a silence on the verandah. Then Vincent let himself go. "You infernal, damned, patronising swine!" he shouted, on a note somewhere midway between a scream and a sob. "You think yourself God Almighty. You imagine that there is no one here fit to lick your stinking boots. You call yourself a gentleman, I call you a Then, when he had sworn himself out of breath, he turned from Harmington, who watched the display with the expression of a man who had always anticipated some such thing, and gaped at the embarrassed faces of the others. It appeared to take him a second or two to realise the situation, for he stood with his mouth open, white, clammy, staring. Then without a word to anybody he bolted from the verandah, down the steps into a twilight of star-shine. Harmington's pious hope that they would be able to keep the unfortunate incident to themselves was not disputed; but when he had gone comment was more free. It was agreed that Vincent had made a considerable fool of himself; but it was the possible effects on his future of his having done so which were most seriously considered. It was generally accepted that now it was odds on trouble. When Vincent went off on tour two days later without having been near the club or having seen the two ladies before whom he had loosed an uncensored vocabulary, both the Cruikshanks and the Lathoms took the matter seriously. "I asked him to dinner," Cruikshank Mrs "Wants a robust sense of humour," Lathom agreed, "to see the funny side of having made a first-class fool of your self, especially when you are alone." 66 not explained, habit of speaking first and "They are square now," Mrs Lathom declared. Each of them has done it once. But I'm afraid Mr Harmington won't be content with that. He's got a safe draw now, and he'll make use of it." Which was the plain truth; but it is only fair to Harmington to state that Vincent appeared intent to meet him more, a good deal more, than half-way in the business. 99.66 Naturally Harmington recognised his advantage directly the two men met again, and he took steps to ensure that it should not be lessened. He contrived one way and another to make certain that Vincent should not escape from the station and the certainty of frequent meetings with him The boy was out in the jungle for a month or so, during which time he was not seen by any white people. He did not return to Sin Byu until a few days after the Christmas and New Year celebrations, although it was obvious that he could have returned for them had he wished to do so. That in itself aroused comment, which seemed fully justified when he first appeared in the club after more than four weeks' absence. He was self. If the boy got away unmistakably self-conscious, a weakness which he had not exhibited before. The way in which he watched people when he was talking to them to see how they were taking him was an entirely new departure in a man who had been in the into the jungle for a day or two, Harmington would see to it that, on some excuse or other, he was recalled; and Vincent, probably on account of his eagerness to convince people that he did not fear the man, seemed no longer capable of carrying out his because he had to confess own work in his own way and of refusing to tolerate unjustified interference. Whenever the two met, socially and officially, which in the nature of the situation they were bound to do almost daily, Harmington exhibited an amazing ingenuity in exposing the worst side of his victim. It was a disgusting performance, but it was highly skilled. When they met officially, and Vincent, as became increasingly common, had to explain or excuse mistakes into which he had blundered, Harmington would listen to him with smiling toleration, talk kindly about youth and inexperience, then, when he had succeeded in goading the boy into some stupid outburst that was mere impertinence, would pass over the incident with elaborate magnanimity. Socially he achieved even more marked results. His means were various, and he used them all with equal success. It became next door to a mathematical certainty that Vincent would immediately respond to the touch of Harmington's polished goad. Sometimes Harmington would amuse himself by introducing Greek and Latin quotations into ordinary conversation and asking for Vincent's opinion of their aptness; and Vincent, who with any one else would have declared that he had ended a reluctant acquaintance with the classics, and had happily forgotten all about them, would become stupidly embarrassed ignorance of the meaning of the words. Sometimes Harmington would appeal to Vincent to corroborate details about places to which he could be fairly certain his victim had never been, the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, certain houses and clubs in London, that sort of thing. Instead of replying that he knew nothing of the places referred to and letting it go at that, Vincent would show unmistakably that he thought he ought to know them, and was fallen from social grace because he did not. But Harmington's surest method and the one he used most commonly was to draw the boy into argument on no matter what topic, and then, by skilled dialectics and judicious patronage, induce him to display both ignorance and temper. Since Harmington was not only highly educated but quite a subtle and brilliant thinker, the result of this pleasing pastime was inevitable. Vincent became more and more angry, confused, and excited as his words were twisted and turned and thrown back at him as arguments against himself, until at last, convinced of the impossibility of making headway against the verbal subtleties of the man with whom he wrangled, he took refuge in crude denials, stupid personalities, and the display, at which Harmington had aimed, of an honest but slightly hairy heel. In an ordinary community, of course, the rotten business would not have gone on. Vin cent would have escaped and deterioration in the boy begone his own way in company came more marked, as the of his own choosing. But in white people in that uncomthat remote community, limited fortable spot recalled the many to under a score of white people, instances where worry and anescape, except to the utter noyance aided by climate had loneliness of the jungle, which reduced sane men and women Harmington had contrived to to insane acts, the likelihood of deny him, was impossible. So, something ugly resulting from when it became clear what the stupid business came to was happening and with what be regarded as next door to a rapidity Vincent was reacting certainty. to that happening after his first mistake, all those people, which was the bulk of the white population, who retained sympathy for a decent fellow and dislike of tragedy, began to grow seriously alarmed. The chief difficulty in the way of doing anything lay in the fact that, judged from an ordinary social point of view, Harmington behaved well and Vincent behaved badly. Harmington was habitually wellmannered and careful to avoid obvious rudeness; Vincent was antagonistic, self-assertive, and, increasingly as the weeks went by, simply rude. He appeared to be labouring under the unhappy delusion that it was necessary for him to assert his worth with everybody he encountered, not merely with Harmington. From being a pleasant and amusing companion, he came very near to a self-assertive ill-mannered bore. He offended people even when they were full of sympathy for him; and the chance of his even listening to any wellintentioned hints was too remote to take. So, as the weather warmed up and the Since any dinner at which Harmington and Vincent were both present had become an impossibility, since tennis when they were both on the ground together was a social ordeal, since the evening bridge hour at the club was ruined by the chance of the two meeting, since in a station so small they must meet constantly, efforts were made to set things right. Davies, it was rumoured, tackled Vincent direct. Anyhow, the two did not speak for over a week. Jenkins, the Sessions Judge, asked Harmington to dinner with Bruce, the Civil Surgeon, as the only other guest. What was said the three of them kept to themselves, but Harmington treated the other two with polished offensiveness for some time afterwards, and his attentions to Vincent were, if anything, increased. Other people recognised that something must be done, but hesitated in face of the danger of making things worse. Then the inevitable physical change began in Vincent, and it was realised that there was not much time left in which to do anything.. |