Val waited to take out his case and light a cigarette. He offered one to Hyde—"Won't you?"
"No, thanks: if you've done I'll be moving on."
"Why I haven't really begun yet. You make me nervous—it's a rotten thing to say to any man, and doubly difficult from me to you—and I express myself badly, But I must chance being called impertinent. The trouble is with your cousin. If you had heard him last night. . . . He's madly jealous."
"Of me? Last night?" Lawrence gave a short laugh: this time he really was amused.
"Dangerously jealous."
"There's not room for a shadow of suspicion. Go and interview
Selincourt's servant if you like, or nose around the Continental."
"Well," said Val, coaxing a lucifer between his cupped palms,
"I dare say it'll come to that. I've done a good deal of
Bernard's dirty work. Some one has to do it for the sake of a
quiet life. His suspicions aren't rational, you know."
"I should think you put them into his head."
"I?" the serene eyes widened slightly, irritating Lawrence by their effect of a delicacy too fastidious for contempt. For this courtesy, of finer grain than his own sarcasm, made him itch to violate and soil it, as mobs will destroy what they never can possess. "Need we drag in personalities? He was jealous of you before you came to Wanhope. He fancies or pretends to fancy that you were in love with Mrs. Clowes when you were boy and girl. We're not dealing with a sane or normal nature: he was practically mad last night—he frightened me. May I give you, word for word, what he said? That he let you stay on because he meant to give his wife rope enough to hang herself."
"What do you want me to do?" said Lawrence after a pause.