“I don't. I want it explained,” Hennion said coolly. “You can't do anything with that. Sit down.”
“He's the only man alive that dares tell the truth. You're all hounds, cowards, thieves! He's a saint in hell!”
“Likely enough. You're a hot disciple. Still, I'm waiting for an explanation.”
“Don't you call him a liar!”
“Haven't. Sit down.”
Hicks sat down, his thin hands shaking painfully. His eyes were narrowed, glittering and suspicious. Hennion tipped his chair back, put his hands into his pockets, and looked at the weak, flickering gas jet, and the ripples of light and shadow that crossed the whitewashed ceiling. They were wild, disordered, and fugitive, as if reflections from the spirit behind Hicks' eyes, instead of from the jet at the end of a lead pipe.
“I'll help you out with a suggestion,” Hennion said slowly. “You don't mean to leave Aidee in that shape, since you feel about him in this way. But you don't know whether your story would go down with me, or whether it might not get Aidee into trouble. Now, if I'm forecasting that story, it's something like this. You knew each other years ago, not in Port Argent.”
Hicks said nothing.
“Carried you around papoose-fashion, did he? But there's some likeness between you. It might happen to be a family likeness.” Still no comment.
“If it so happened, you might be related. You might be twins. And then again you might not. You might have been his first convert. Partners maybe in Nevada. That: was where he came from,—silver mines and what not. It's no business of mine.”