word did he speak during dinner: not a word, save what was forced from
him by common courtesy, spoke he after the ladies had left the room; he
only drank a great deal of wine.

A very unusual circumstance for Val Elster. With all his weak resolution,
his yielding nature, drinking was a fault he was scarcely ever seduced
into. Not above two or three times in his life could he remember to have
exceeded the bounds of strict, temperate sobriety. The fact was, he was
in wrath with himself: all his past follies were pressing upon him with
bitter condemnation. He was just in that frame of mind when an object to
vent our fury upon becomes a sort of necessity; and Mr. Elster's was
vented on his brother.

He was waiting at boiling-point for the opportunity to "have it out" with
him: and it soon came. As the gentlemen left the dining-room--and in
these present days they do not, as a rule, sit long, especially when the
host is a young man--Percival Elster touched his brother to detain him,
and shut the door on the heels of the rest.

Lord Hartledon was surprised. Val's attack was so savage. He was talking
off his superfluous wrath, and the wine he had taken did not tend to cool
his heat. Lord Hartledon, vexed at the injustice, lost his temper; and
for once there was a quarrel, sharp and loud, between the brothers. It
did not last long; in its very midst they parted; throwing cutting words
one at the other. Lord Hartledon quitted the room, to join his guests;
Val Elster strode outside the window to cool his brain.

But now, look at the obstinate pride of those two foolish men! They were
angry with each other in temper, but not in heart. In Percival Elster's
conscience there was an underlying conviction that his brother had acted