“No, it isn’t,” said Wyvern quietly, but not sneeringly.
Le Sage had got up and was pacing up and down feverishly. Wyvern had never moved. Had he known it, he was at that moment in some considerable peril. He was sitting right on the edge of the krantz, and the other was behind him; and Le Sage was one of those men who when they do fairly lose their tempers go nearly mad. Now his face was ghastly, and he snarled like a cornered animal.
“Your plan’s a fraud,” he repeated furiously, “and you’re a fraud yourself. You humbugged me into believing you were a man of solid position, while all the time you were a damned, useless, bankrupt waster. You sneaked my consent under false pretences. Yes, under false pretences,” he bellowed, “and now I withdraw it. D’you hear? I withdraw it unconditionally, you—swindler.”
Wyvern had risen now, but with no sort of idea of violence, and stood confronting the infuriated man.
“Now, Le Sage, don’t you think all this is rather cowardly on your part?” he said, in a quiet, expostulatory tone. “I mean because you must know that you’re the one man privileged to say such things to me—in fact, to go on all day calling me all the frauds and swindlers you want to, and still remain absolutely immune from retaliation. It’s not fair.”
“Not fair, eh?” snarled Le Sage, infuriated by the other’s coolness, though there was nothing in this that was in the least offensive or taunting. “Well, now, look here. Get away off my place, d’you see? This is my ground. A mile further on is my boundary. Well, get across that as soon as ever you like, and don’t set foot on my place again, or by God, I might even blow your brains out.”
“Then you’d get hanged or shut up for a considerable time, and would that be good for Lalanté?”
“Go—d’you hear,” stamped the furious man. “Go. There’s the boundary. Go over it—to hell or the devil.”
“You don’t expect me to walk ten miles when I’ve got a horse, do you? I left one at your place, and, incidentally, a tooth-brush.”
Le Sage by this time was reduced to exhausted speechlessness. He could only glare helplessly. Not wishing to exasperate him further and needlessly, Wyvern had refrained from saying that he had no intention of going until he had seen Lalanté once more. She would be on the look-out for their return, he knew that, would probably come forth to welcome—him, Le Sage would have no power to prevent their meeting.