Fordham’s chambers were situated in a quiet street just off Park Lane. They were comfortable, but not luxurious, as became one who was a confirmed wanderer—here to-day, there to-morrow. He never cared to accumulate a collection of things, for that very reason. Here on the day after Philip’s meeting with his father did Fordham sit. He was writing—answering a letter from Wentworth urging him to join the latter at Les Avants the following week—a suggestion which rather fell in with his own inclinations—for London at the end of September was insufferably close, abominably dusty, and blatantly vulgar. He hardly knew himself why he had stayed so long.
Well, that was not quite accurate either. He did know. He wanted to watch the explosion of the infernal machine he had so craftily pieced together, to note its results.
His letter finished, he pushed his chair from the table and began to think. He was in one of his worst moods that morning—cool, cynical, utterly without ruth. As he thought on his interview of the previous evening he laughed at himself because of the temporary softening he had undergone. When others had got the drop on him, did they relent? Not they. Now he had got the drop on them, why should he feel any compunction? He would not. While in this vein he heard steps quickly ascending the stairs. The door opened and there entered—Philip.
The latter stopped short. At first it seemed as if he could not speak. His broad chest was heaving, and a red spot burned in each of his livid cheeks. Then, slowly, he brought out three words—
“You—infernal villain!”
Fordham slightly shrugged his shoulders, and the expression of his face was not goodly to look upon.
“Is that all you came here to say? Well, at any rate you can’t say I didn’t warn you—didn’t give you every chance. Why, man, I did nothing but warn you.”
“Yes—by the rule of contraries. And now what have you got to say? Putting myself aside for the present, for what you have done to my father you shall answer to me. Yes, to me!”
His tone had attained a loud and threatening pitch, and he made a step forward. Fordham, who had risen when he first came in, drew himself together with a nearly imperceptible movement which reminded one of nothing so much as a snake ready to strike. Thus they confronted each other, these two who had been such close, such intimate friends.