"Don't tell me lies, sir!"
Ethan stood before him cold and rigid on a sudden. No flush now on the clear-cut features.
"You've no right to speak to me as you're doing, not if you were fifty grandfathers."
"Where did these other meetings take place, sir? Did old Marlowe countenance them?"
"There were no other meetings."
Ethan turned away.
"Now, look here!"—the old man arraigned him with a shaking hand—"you can't undo the bitter disappointment you are to me, but you can and you owe it to me to tell me fairly and squarely the details of this wretched business. I can't proceed in the matter if I'm in the dark."
"You proceed in the matter?"
Ethan wheeled about and faced him.
"It's quite plain that you were merely a yielding fool in the matter—girl older, and you—"