"That's not true," said Courtney quietly. "I know the truth now. And I never thought of it before!" She could not understand how she had been so unthinking; it was another, an unexpected measure of the cleavage between Richard's life and hers.
"You'd better confine your attention to things you understand," said Vaughan. "It was all Gallatin's folly, I assure you."
"That's the truth, Mrs. Vaughan," said Gallatin earnestly. "The whole truth."
She said no more, but her face showed she did not believe him. Gallatin, depressed and remorseful, went out on the veranda, strolled down toward the lake. Vaughan sat on, pulling savagely at his cigar. He was enraged because his outburst had caused the disclosure of the secret he had intended to keep from her, had given her a false idea which, as she was a woman, a creature of notions and whims, nothing could ever correct. He forgot his fine philosophy about self-excuse, and turned his rage from himself to her. "It's really all your fault," he exclaimed, glowering at her.
Winchie, seated between his father and mother, took up his knife and raised it threateningly against his father, his gray-green eyes ablaze.
In another mood Vaughan would have been secretly delighted, would have gravely accepted the rebuke and made apology to the boy and to Courtney. But the devil—the realest devil that torments spirit through flesh—was in him that night, was on the prowl. He pointed his cigar at the infuriated child. "What's the meaning of this?" he demanded.
"Winchie," said Courtney, in a low, firm voice.
The boy's eyes shifted from father to mother.
"Put down that knife, go upstairs and go to bed."
Son and mother looked at each other fully ten seconds; the boy lowered the knife, laid it on the table, descended from his chair, marched haughtily from the room. When he was gone Vaughan said: "You should have made him apologize to me."