He repeated his question harshly, as though demanding an instant answer. What could I tell him?
He broke the miserable silence. “Ever since you talked of leaving, I’ve been studying this thing out. I knew we’d have to face it, and yet somehow I hoped—— Never mind what I hoped. So you’ve nothing to say? You can’t guess what I’m driving at?”
I shook my head.
His face became haggard and stern; only the twitching of the eye-lids betrayed his nervousness.
“I’d give anything to see Vi happy. So would you—isn’t that correct?” He darted a challenging look in my direction. “I’d give all I possess, I say, factories, banks, good name, popularity. She’s more to me than anything in the world.” Then reluctantly forcing himself to speak the words, “There’s only one way out—only one way to make her happy.”
He leant forward, clutching my knee. “You must have her.”
I drew back from him amazed, startled out of my self-possession. There was something so horribly commonsense about his offer; I could not take him seriously for the moment. He was tempting me, perhaps, in order that he might find out just how far Vi and I had gone together—he might easily suspect that things had happened during that summer at Ransby which had not been confessed.
Now as I met his cold gray eyes, I felt his power. His face was inscrutable and set, his mouth relentless. I had often wondered as I had watched him in his home-life what stern qualities his amiability disguised—qualities which would account for his business success. I knew now: here was a man who could state facts in their nudity and strip problems of their sentiment—a man who could lay aside feeling and act with the cruelty of logic.
“You must have her,” he repeated.
“Randall,” I broke out hoarsely, “you don’t mean that.”