Charnock dared not trust himself to answer. He got up and walked to the door of the tent, unfastened the flap, and let the sunlight in.
"Funny thing!" continued Warriner, "I never took much account of my wife. She was a bit too stately for me. It was just as though someone played symphonies to you all day when you hankered after music of the music-hall type. But somehow,--I suppose it's seeing you doing the heroic and all for her, don't you know?--somehow I am getting very fond of her."
Charnock seemed to have heard not a single word. He stood at the door of the tent, looking indifferently this way and that. His silence spurred Warriner to continue. "I tell you what, Charnock," he said, "you had better run straight with me. You'll find out your mistake if you don't. I'll tell you something more: you had better let me find when I get back to Ronda that you have run straight with me." He saw Charnock suddenly look round the angle of the tent and then shade his eyes with his hand. It seemed impossible to provoke him in any way. "Mind, I don't say that I shall take it much to heart, if the affair has stopped where you say it has." Charnock had said not a word about the matter, as Warriner was well aware. "No," he continued, "on the contrary; for no harm's actually done, you say, and my wife steps down from her pedestal on to my level. Understand, sonny?--What are you up to? Here, I say."
Charnock had stridden back into the tent. He stooped over Warriner and roughly plucked him up from the ground. "Stand up, will you!" he cried.
"Here, I say," protested Warriner, rather feebly; "you might be speaking to a dog."
"I wish I was."
At that Warriner turned. The two men's faces were convulsed with passion; hatred looked out from Warriner's eyes and saw its image in Charnock's.
"Get out of the tent," said Charnock, and taking Warriner by the shoulder, he threw rather than pushed him out.
"Now, what's that?" and he pointed an arm towards the east.
"That's a caravan."