"Ah, it is not worth while bluffing," he said. "I have never written such a letter to you. You know it. Is it likely I should?"
Mr. Taynton apparently had no reply to this. But he had a question to ask.
"Why are you taking up this hostile and threatening attitude?"
"I have not meant to be hostile, and I have certainly not threatened," replied Mills. "I have put before you, quite dispassionately I hope, certain facts. Indeed I should say it was you who had threatened in the matter of those letters, which, unhappily, have never existed at all. I will proceed.
"Now what has been my part in this affair? I have observed you lost money in speculations of which I disapproved, but you always knew best. I have advanced money to you before now to tide over embarrassments that would otherwise have been disastrous. By the exercise of diplomacy—or lying—yesterday, I averted a very grave danger. I point out to you also that there is nothing to implicate me in these—these fraudulent employments of a client's money. So I ask, where I come in? What do I get by it?"
Mr. Taynton's hands were trembling as he fumbled at some papers on his desk.
"You know quite well that we are to share all profits?" he said.
"Yes, but at present there have not been any. I have been, to put it plainly, pulling you out of holes. And I think—I think my trouble ought to be remunerated. I sincerely hope you will take that view also. Or shall I remind you again that there is nothing in the world to connect me with these, well, frauds?"
Mr. Taynton got up from his chair, strolled across to the window where he drew down the blind a little, so as to shut out the splash of sunlight that fell on his table.
"You have been betting again, I suppose," he asked quietly.