Because of the semi-obscurity his face was white with a whiteness that quickened Thor's sympathy into self-reproach.
"What are you doing here?"
"That's my business." In making this reply Claude seemed to take it for granted that they met on terms of hostility, though he added, less aggressively: "If you want to know, I'm packing up. Taking the train for New York at one o'clock to-night."
Thor endeavored to speak with casual fraternal interest. "What brought you back?"
Claude took time to light a cigarette, saying, as he blew out the match, "You."
"Me? I thought it might be—might be some one else."
"Then you thought wrong." He walked to a metal ash-tray which helped to keep the covering that protected one of the low bookcases in its place, and deposited the burnt match. He threw off with seeming carelessness as he did so, "I know only one traitor, to make me keep returning on my tracks."
Because the impulse to violence was so terrific, Thor braced himself against it, standing with his feet planted apart and his hands clenched behind him till the nails dug into the flesh. He could not, however, restrain a scornful little grunt which was meant for laughter. "You talk of traitors! I'd keep quiet about them, Claude, if I were you. You make it too easy for an opponent."
"Oh, well," Claude returned, airily, "I'm used to doing that. I made it infernally easy for an opponent—last winter. But, then, sneaking's always easy to a snake, till you get your heel on him."
"And snarling's easy to a puppy, till you've throttled him."