After all, he would be glad enough, himself, to have two hundred pounds at his disposal! He had already spent a third of all his and Gerda’s savings in the purchase of a cut-glass decanter and a set of wineglasses for Darnley and Mattie. It would be riches to have such a sum as this added to their account in the Post Office! All he knew was that ever since he had wrapped the cheque about the belly of Mukalog he had been profoundly unwilling to touch it. The thing seemed unholy to him⁠ ⁠… unholy. It was a sort of blood-money for the sale of his “mythology.” He had pilfered back this precious possession⁠ ⁠… desperately, cowardly, meanly done so⁠ ⁠… by his equivocal behaviour to Christie. To fling down the torn bits of the cheque upon Urquhart’s table would be an equivalent for many snakelike turns and twists!

But in spite of these thoughts he felt at that moment an uneasy stirring of self-reproach. He had treated Christie abominably the night before. Was he going to treat Gerda still worse today? “It’s all very well,” he said in his heart, “to follow these niceties of honour for my own sake. But how arbitrary, how monstrous, to snatch this money from Gerda when it means so much to her!”