Masters made a disgusted gesture in surrender. Stannard, who had been leaning his weight with both hands on the marble-topped table, looked up with some attempt at lightness and humour.
"Your question, my dear Drake?"
Martin looked him in the eye.
"You were beginning to have the horrors," Martin said. "But you wouldn't give in. You meant to show these young swine they were pretty small beer when it came to nerve. So you deliberately dropped down into that shaft, and left your light behind, to sit in the dark near a — an ugly sight, until you were let out at four in the morning. Is that true?"
There was a silence.
"You put it bluntly," said Stannard. "However, that's true."
Ruth had sat up, her hands clenched. Despite her self- control, the tears stung to her eyes.
"Stan, you idiot!" she raved. "You utter, absolute, and complete idiot!’
Stannard, though clearly as blind as a bat regarding women, appeared to sense a new quality here. But he did not believe it
"Ruth, my dear," he began, and hesitated. He was again sedate and grave. "If any foolishness of mine ever gives you the slightest concern," he said, "it will have been worth it."