“Sit down be damned! I suppose you’ve been chattering as usual. I should have thought you would have the decency to shut up about what wasn’t your business. I warned you about him, didn’t I? Why couldn’t you keep the fellow out?”
“My dear man,” I said, “if I’d refused to see him, he’d have thought there was something very suspicious about the business.”
“So I suppose you blabbed it all out like a good, virtuous little boy.”
“As a matter of fact,” I said, “he seemed to know all about it.”
“Nonsense! How could he know, unless you told him?”
“Possibly,” I said, “he gathered it from your manner, or from Mrs. Harrison. Besides,” I added, feeling that attack was my only possible form of defence, “I thought you told me it was all over and done with. Isn’t it? I assured Harrison that it was. I had only your word to go on. If it wasn’t all over, what the devil did you mean by taking me down to Devon with you? You know perfectly well that if I’d known it was still going on, wild horses wouldn’t have taken me down there.”
This brought him up all standing.
“Yes, well,” he said, “of course it’s all over. But why did you have to tell him anything about it at all?”
“Look here,” I said, “you’ve not been straight with me, and I don’t believe you now. I’ve had quite enough of this. You’ve dragged me into this business again. I’ve been your scapegoat once and I’d fed up. Do you expect me to go on taking the blame for your idiotic love-affairs? I’ve got my wife to consider.”
I was afraid he would go back to the very difficult question of how you got to know about the intrigue. I didn’t want to tell him about the