A silence followed: a slight drizzle had begun to fall, speckling the waters of the Pool; neither man heeded it.
"It would be impertinent in me," the Major resumed, "to offer you any sympathy on the score of that misfortune; believe me, however, that my knowledge—my full knowledge—of the circumstances can incline me to nothing but a deep regret. But facts are facts, however hardly they may bear on individuals." He paused. "I have asserted what I know. You are entitled to ask me for proofs, Mr Tristram."
Harry was silent a moment, thinking very hard. Many modes of defence came into his busy brain and were rejected. Should he be tempestuous? No. Should he be amazed? Again no. Even on his own theory of the story, Duplay's assertion hardly entitled him to be amazed.
"As regards my part in this matter," he said at last, "I have only this to say. The circumstances of my birth—with which I am, as you rightly suppose, quite familiar—were such as to render the sort of notion you have got hold of plausible enough. I don't
want what you call proofs—though you'll want them badly if you mean to pursue your present line. I have my own proofs—perfectly in order, perfectly satisfactory. That's all I have to say about my part of the matter. About your part in it I can, I think, be almost equally brief. Are you merely Mr Iver's friend, or are you also, as you put it, paying attentions to Miss Iver?"
"That, sir, has nothing to do with it."
Harry Tristram looked up at him. For the first time he broke into a smile as he studied Duplay's face. "I shouldn't in the least wonder," he said almost chaffingly, "if you believed that to be true. You get hold of a cock-and-bull story about my being illegitimate (Oh, I've no objection to plainness either in its proper place!), you come to me and tell me almost in so many words that if I don't give up the lady you'll go to her father and show him your precious proofs. Everybody knows that you're after Miss Iver yourself, and yet you say that it has nothing to do with it! That's the sort of thing a man may manage to believe about himself; it's not the sort of thing that other people believe about him, Major Duplay." He rose slowly to his feet and the men stood face to face on the edge of the Pool. The rain fell more heavily: Duplay turned up his collar, Harry took no notice of the downpour.
"I'm perfectly satisfied as to the honesty of my own motives," said Duplay.
"That's not true, and you know it. You may try to shut your eyes, but you can't succeed."
Duplay was shaken. His enemy put into words what his own conscience had said to him. His position was hard: he was doing what honestly seemed to him the right thing to do: he could not seem to do it because it was right. He would be wronging the