"You refuse me the materials. What you told Major Duplay was too vague. You know more. You can put me on the track."
Mina was silent. Neeld wiped his brow with his handkerchief. Iver changed his tone.
"Mina, we've been friends to you. I'm not ashamed to remind you of it. Janie's a great friend of yours; my wife and I have welcomed you first for her sake, then for your own. Is this the best return you can make us? Consult anybody you like, if you think I'm prejudiced, whether your conduct is honorable, is square." He paused a moment. "Ask Mr Neeld here what he would do. I'm willing to abide by his judgment."
Mina was sorely tempted to say, "Ask him then." The situation would thus become so much the more piquant. But Mr Neeld was in such distress—to her sharp eyes a distress so visible—that she did not dare to risk the coup. If he were let alone he might keep silence and quiet his conscience by the plea that he had been asked no questions. But she did not venture to face him with a demand for a verdict on her conduct; for her conduct was also his own.
"I must judge for myself. Mr Neeld can't help me," she answered. "Uncle has chosen to say he can prove these things. Let him try." She drew herself up with a prim prudish air. "I don't think it's desirable to mix myself up in such very peculiar questions at all, and I don't think it's nice of men to come and cross-question me about them."
"Oh, we're not in a girls' school," said Iver, with a touch of irritation hardly suppressed. "We come as men of the world to a sensible woman."
"Anybody will tell you I'm not that," interrupted the Imp.
"Well, then, to a woman of good feeling, who wishes to be honest and to be true to her friends. Duplay, have you no influence with Madame Zabriska?"
"I've spared no effort," replied the Major. "I can't believe that she won't help us in the end." His tone was almost menacing. Mina, remembering how he had terrorized the secret out of her before, and resenting the humiliation of the memory, stiffened her neck once more.