“What’s Gernham been saying to you?” he added sharply.
“Gernham—oh, you know him,” I answered. “You know where his heart is,
with the animals. What an enthusiast he is!”
“He’s been talking to you about his work then. Well, did he tell you
that we’ve had a quarrel, he and I?”
“He said your work together had come to a stop, for the moment. Why
should it?”
“Why? Oh, well, sometimes Gernham is too blunt, says more than he,
than any man ought to say to another. There is a limit to frankness;
occasionally he oversteps it. He overstepped it with me, and I resented
it. Don’t you think I was right?”
I felt that he was being strangely insincere with me as he had been
insincere with Gernham, trying to raise a cloud which would obscure the
reality of his mind, the true scope of his intentions.
“I see no reason why two such men as you should quarrel,” I answered.
“Especially if it interrupts, and perhaps, to some extent, cripples
a splendid work. You should sink your little differences, and go on
together, hand in hand, to further the noble cause you love.”
He had been trying to play me. I was now trying to play him. Yet, as I
finished, a genuine warmth came, I think, into my voice. It moved him.
I could see that, for he looked up at me as if demanding my sympathy.
Suddenly I felt a profound pity for him, a profound desire to help him.
But how? Against what?
“Perhaps we shall be friends again,” he said. “But he misunderstands
me, and you, Luttrell, perhaps you misunderstand me too.”
“I!”
“Yes—you. Are you sure that, in these last days, you have never had any
cruel suspicions of me? Are you sure you have not any cruel suspicions
of me now?”
“If I had, if I have, you could easily clear them up,” I answered. “By
the way, how’s the dog getting on? All right?”
His face changed at once, hardened.
“Oh, yes!” he said.
“I should like to have another look at him,” I said. “Where is he?”
“He’s downstairs in the study. Didn’t you know it?”
“I—I did think I heard something scratching and whining. Why do you
keep him shut up?”
“He hasn’t got accustomed to being with me yet. If I let him out he
might bolt.”
“Oh!”
“I don’t want to have spent my twelve pounds for nothing,” he added.
His face had hardened. Now his voice was hard too—hard and fatal.
“May I have a look at him?” I said.
The sense of mystery was returning upon me. I tried to combat it by
speaking bluntly, expressing my desire plainly. At least, I would no
longer deal in subterfuge. Instead of answering my question he said,
throwing a curious, wavering glance upon me, “Are you engaged to-night?”