Braithwaite's face went white beneath its tan. He fell to stroking his mustache. "You take a lot upon
yourself. It's the first time that I've ever been accused of not playing fair."
"But I accuse you of it." Tabs spoke with an equal quietness. To any one watching they would have appeared to be two handsome men of the soldier type engaged in desultory conversation. "I have to accuse you of it. I want you to glance through this before you answer me."
He drew from his pocket and passed across the letter which Ann had given him that morning—the letter which, to quote her words, "Might make things seem more sensible-like to your Lordship's friend at the War Office." It was unaddressed, but as Braithwaite's eye fell on the sprawling handwriting of the contents, the deep flush which crept across his face betrayed the fact that it was recognized. He commenced to read the sheet with a studied carelessness; as he proceeded, the carelessness gave way to a troubled frown. For some time after he had finished, he sat motionless. When he looked up, his mood was contemptuous. "So this is your price?"
"No price was mentioned."
"But it was implied. You tell me that, at the time that I was being accepted, you yourself were hoping to be engaged to Miss Beddow; then you hand me this letter. What do you suppose I infer? What would any man infer? That your promise to keep my existence a secret from Ann is conditional on the breaking of my engagement with Miss Beddow."
"Handing you Ann's letter wouldn't do that. Your engagement with Miss Beddow is already broken."
Braithwaite jerked his chair back and stared. Then the audacity of such an assertion touched his sense of humor. He fell to laughing. "That at least is an invention."
Tabs showed no resentment. There was something disturbingly convincing about his self-possession. "Didn't I tell you," he asked patiently, "that you'd find it difficult to believe a good many things before I had ended? I had an appointment to see Miss Beddow at her father's house this morning at eleven. Before I'd finished breakfast she was visiting me instead. She had called to make two requests: that I would see you to-day and get her promise back, and that I'd become engaged to her myself."