He had never been so angry in his life. To be brought to book at all was bad enough, but what rankled worst was the nature of the charge. Sometimes it takes a false accusation to make a man realize the esteem in which he is held, the opinions which others attribute to him and which perhaps, without examining them too closely, he has allowed to pass for his own. Lawrence had indulged in plenty of loose talk about Nietzschean ethics and the danger of altruism and the social inexpediency of sacrificing the strong for the weak, but when it came to his own honour not Val himself could have held a more conservative view. He, take advantage of a cripple? He commit a breach of hospitality? He sneak into Wanhope as his cousin's friend to corrupt his cousin's wife? What has been called the pickpocket form of adultery had never been to his taste. Had Bernard been on his feet, a strong man armed, Lawrence might, if he had fallen in love with Laura, have gloried in carrying her off openly; but of the baseness of which Val accused him he knew himself to be incapable.
"Really?" he said, looking down at Val out of his wide black eyes, so like Bernard's except that they concealed all that Bernard revealed. "So now we understand each other. I know why you want me to go and you know why I want to stay."
"If I've done you an injustice I'm sorry for it."
"Oh, don't apologize," said Lawrence laughing. His manner bewildered Val, who could make nothing of it except that it was incompatible with any sense of guilt.
"But, then," the question broke from Val involuntarily, "why did you stay?"
"Why do you?"
"I?"
"Yes, you. Did it never strike you that I might retort with a tu quoque?"
"How on earth—?"
"You were perhaps a little preoccupied," said Lawrence with his deadly smile. "I suggest, Val, that whether Clowes was jealous or not—you were."