The Long Chance by Max Brand

Author:Max Brand [Brand, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Western
Publisher: Roy Glashan's Library
Published: 2017-04-05T22:00:00+00:00

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XXII. — IN DISGRACE

WELL, it was a painful trial for me, because at that time I don’t think that there was a man in the world with an uglier temper than mine. But, as best I could, I kept in mind the grim face of O’Rourke as it had looked when I last talked with him—as another, more religious, man might have kept through a season of temptation the image of a patron saint.

St. O’Rourke!

Well, I could not smile at the idea just then. I was too sick of the work that lay before me. And that work, I felt sure, must end in a murder, with or without my will. Stand up against these polite sons of polite families? I who had been bred in that terrible school of the great West, hardened by battles with ruffians of every hue, and seasoned on many a war trail? No, I couldn’t do it!

And if O’Rourke had been right in feeling that I had taken a vicious advantage of my natural skill with weapons in that land of fighters, how should it be here, where guns were a mere matter of amusement, and not at all of necessity? I felt that I should stick to my point, even though it meant breaking the word that I had plighted to Charlie Granville.

But that did not rest heavily on my conscience. I was here to take all the obloquy that should be heaped on my head. Charles would have to taste the infamy, and before he returned, I hoped to have put him right before the eyes of every man.

Yes, it was a hard thing to do, but it was the right thing to do. I had no doubt about that. It sickened me to think of passing through the ordeal that lay ahead of me, but at the same time I knew that I would have to do it.

I went out of the little study and walked into the living room, where the family were still sitting. Their grave, stricken faces turned toward me.

“Father,” said I, “and the rest of you—I’m not meeting Baring. He invited me for the morning, and I have refused!”

Aye, well! Let me get over it quickly, for it turns my blood cold to remember the horror and the disgust with which Nancy looked at me, for she was a true child of that society. The colonel started up and tried to speak, but the words failed him, and he turned with a groan to his wife, and she to him.

That instant I knew that I was shut out from the family circle.

I withdrew and went up the stairs to Charles Granville’s room. I knew it perfectly. He had described everything in it so many times, down to the foolish little secret passage that opened from beside the fireplace, that it was almost like stepping into an old, familiar scene.

I sat down miserably by the window and tried to draw some comfort out of watching the

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