"No."
"I thought not. How long has he known Viola?"
"It's nearly two years since he came to Colorow; but he has only seen her a few times--"
Pratt cut her short. "I begin to understand. You'd better not let him mix in here--he's too young and too good-looking to conduct experiments of this kind with your girl. If you had any sense, Clarke, you'd see that for yourself."
Clarke's expression changed. His cheeks grew livid with his passion, and his eyes burned with the same wild light that had filled them as he looked across the room at Morton bending over Viola's hand. Pratt's brutal frankness had cleared his own thought and re-aroused his sense of proprietorship in the girl. Until that dinner came with its revelation, he had thought of Serviss merely as the scientist to be used to further his own plans. Now he knew him for what he was--a young and dangerous rival. With a sinking of the heart he suspected him to be a successful rival.
He rose from the table and left the room, and Mrs. Lambert followed him fearful of what he might do in his rage.
"Tony, Tony!" she called.
He turned and faced her, his face set in horrible lines, his fists clinched. "I've been a fool, a fool!" he declared, through set teeth. "Why didn't you warn me? I should have made her safely my own before I came East. She loves him, but he shall not have her--by God he shall not! Where is she? Tell her I must see her!"
She pleaded for delay, and at last calmed him so that he left her and went to his room. She then hastened to Viola and locked the door behind her.
"Viola, dear, get ready! We must leave this house at once," she said, breathlessly.
"What has happened?" asked Viola.
Mrs. Lambert took time to think. "It was very disagreeable. They are wrangling again about that challenge and about you."
"About me! Yes, that's what wears on me--they wrangle about me as if I had no right to say what part I am to take. But it's all over, mother; unless grandfather holds me by the throat every mortal minute to-day I'm going into the street--"
A knock at the door startled them both, but it proved to be the maid, who said, "Here is a note from Mr. Clarke, miss; he said, 'be sure and bring an answer,' miss."
The note was a passionate appeal for a meeting, but Viola wrote across it in firm letters, "No. It is useless," and returned it to the girl. "Take that to him," she said, careless of the fact that her refusal was open to the eyes of the messenger.