Saton said nothing. He stood immovable, waiting.
“Whatever your game in life may be,” Rochester continued, “you can play it, for all I care, to the end. But there is one thing which I forbid. I have come here so that you shall understand that I forbid it. You can make fools of the whole world, you can have them kneeling at your feet to listen to your infernal nonsense—the whole world save one woman. I am ashamed to mention her name in your presence, but you know whom I mean.”
Saton’s lips seemed to move for a moment, but he still remained silent.
“Very well,” Rochester said. “There shall be no excuse, no misunderstanding. The woman with whom I forbid you to have anything whatever to do, whom I order you to treat from this time forward as a stranger, is Pauline Marrabel.”
Saton was still in no hurry to speak. He leaned a little forward. His eyes seemed to burn as though touched with some inward fire.
“By what right,” he asked, “do you come here and dictate to me? You are not my father or my guardian. I do not recognize your right to speak to me as one having authority.”
“It was I who turned you loose upon the world,” Rochester answered. “I deserve hanging for it.”
“I should be sorry,” Saton said coldly, “to deprive you of your deserts.”
“You have learned many things since those days,” Rochester declared. “You have acquired the knack of glib speech. You have become a past master in the arts which go to the ensnaring of over-imaginative women. You have mixed with quack spiritualists and self-styled professors of what they term occultism. Go and practise your arts where you will, but remember what I have told you. Remember the person’s name which I have mentioned. Remember it, obey what I have said, and you may fool the whole world. Forget it, and I am your enemy. Understand that.”
“And you,” Saton answered with darkening face, “understand this from me, Rochester. I do not for a moment admit your right to speak to me in this fashion. I admit no obligation to you. We are simply man and man in the world together, and the words which you have spoken have no weight with me whatever.”