Australians -- England -- Fiction; Inheritance and succession -- Fiction
"You were right!" he exclaimed, in an attempt to voice what he felt to
Olivia; "you were quite right that day in the hut to say 'I wonder,' to
what I said about not minding if I woke up and found myself on Carara
after all. You set _me_ wondering at the time, and now I rather think
that I should mind a good deal. This place grows upon you. I feel it
more and more every morning when I get the first glimpse of it, coming
through the pines. But I never felt it as I do to-night--look at that!"
The entire front of the building was lit up by an enormous Roman candle,
playing like a fountain on the terrace. Turret and spire and battlement
were stamped sharp and grey against the darkling sky. The six Corinthian
columns of the portico stood out like sentinels who had taken a step
forward as one man. And in the tympanum overhead the shield of the six
eagles that was carved there showed so plainly that Olivia and Jack
pointed it out to each other at the same moment.
"You mustn't think I've no respect for the fowls," said the Duke, when
they were both left blinking in the chaste light of the reproving moon;
"I'm proud enough of them at the bottom of my heart. I may be slow at
catching on to new ideas. I know I didn't at first take to everything
like a duck to water. I couldn't, after the life I'd led; it was too
much for one man. But I am getting used to it now. As old Claude says,
I'm beginning to appreciate it. I am so! This has been the proudest day
of my life; I'm proud of everything, of the place, the people----"
"And yourself most of all!" cried a thick voice at his elbow, while
Olivia's fingers tightened on his other arm.
It was Matthew Hunt. He was flushed with wine, but steady enough on his
legs. Only his tongue was beyond control, and a crowd was at his heels
to hear what he would say next.
"Yes, I remember you," he continued savagely. "I shan't forget that
morning in a hurry----"
"Yet you seem to have forgotten who you are speaking to," put in the
Duke quietly.
Hunt laughed horribly.
"Forgotten? I never knew! All I know is as I'm _not_ speaking to his
Grace the Duke----"
Olivia was not shaken off. She only felt a quivering in the arm she
held; she only guessed it was the other arm that shot out too quick for
her sight from his further shoulder: and all she saw was the dropping of
Hunt at their feet, as if with a bullet through his brain. She conquered
her impulse to scream, and she found herself saying instead, "Well done!
It served him right!" And the voice sounded strange in her own ears.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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