“You know what it’s about, all right,” was Blake’s heavy retort.
“On the contrary,” said Copeland, putting down his hat and coat, “I’m quite in the dark as to how I can be of service to you.”
Both his tone and his words angered Blake, angered him unreasonably. But he kept warning himself to wait, to hold himself in until the proper moment arrived.
“I expect no service from you,” was Blake’s curtly guttural response. He croaked out his mirthless ghost of a laugh. “You’ve taught me better than that!”
Copeland, for all his iciness, seemed to resent the thrust.
“We have always something to learn,” he retorted, meeting Blake’s stolid stare of enmity.
“I guess I’ve learned enough!” said Blake.
“Then I hope it has brought you what you are looking for!” Copeland, as he spoke, stepped over to a chair, but he still remained on his feet.
“No, it hasn’t brought me what I’m after,” said the other man. “Not yet! But it’s going to, in the end, Mr. Copeland, or I’m going to know the reason why!”
He kept warning himself to be calm, yet he found his voice shaking a little as he spoke. The time was not yet ripe for his outbreak. The climactic moment was still some distance away. But he could feel it emerging from the mist just as a pilot sights the bell-buoy that marks his changing channel.