"But why?" cried Harry. "What have you said?"
"What have I said? Well, I reminded him of a trifling incident which there was no need to remind him of at all, for the mere thought of it turned him pale the moment he saw me. So I took the liberty of showing him what might still happen if he didn't do exactly what I wanted about you. My boy, the thing was settled in two minutes. A rising young fellow like Wintour Phipps is not the man to be struck off the rolls if he knows it! But I wasn't coming away without having the whole thing down in black and white, and here it is."
From his inner pocket he took out a long blue envelope and slapped it down on the desk.
"May I see?" said Harry in a throbbing voice.
"Certainly; it's your business now, not mine."
Harry ran his eye over the brief document. Then he looked up.
"It's my business now—not yours?"
"To be sure."
"Then I'm very much obliged to you, Mr. Lowndes, but here's an end of it."
He tore the paper twice across, and carefully dropped it into the waste-paper basket. Then he looked up again. And he had never seen Lowndes really pale until that moment, nor really red until the next. Yet the storm passed over after all.