"In spite of the fact that she was engaged to Worth Gilbert?"
"Boyne," he said impatiently, "what's the matter with you? Haven't I made you understand what happened there at the study? She had to break off with the son of a man like that. Ina Thornhill couldn't marry into such a breed."
"Slow up, Vandeman!" Edwards' tone was soft, but when I looked at him, I saw a tawny spark in his black eyes. Vandeman fronted him with the flamboyant embroidered monogram on his shirt sleeve, the carefully careless tie, the utterly good clothes, and, most of all, at the moment, the smug satisfaction in his face of social and human security. I thought of what that Frenchman says about there being nothing so enjoyable to us as the troubles of our friends. "Needn't think you can put it all over the boy when he's not here to defend himself—jump on him because he's down! Tell that your wife discarded him—cast him off—for disgraceful reasons! Damnitall! You and I both heard Tom giving her her orders to break with his son, she sniffling and hunting hairpins over the floor and promising that she would."
"Cut it out!" yelled Vandeman, as though some one had pinched him. "I saw nothing of the sort. I heard nothing of the sort. Neither did you."
I think they had forgotten me, and that they remembered at about the same instant that they were talking before a detective. They both turned, mum and startled looking, Edwards to his window, Vandeman to a nervous brushing of his trouser edges, from which he looked up, inquiring doubtfully,
"What next, Boyne? Jim's excited; but you understand that there's no animus; and my wife and I are entirely at your disposal in this matter."
"Thank you," I said.
"Would you like to talk to her?"
"When?"