"Well, you can't dodge it this time, so we may as well have it out."
"Then since you insist upon that awful word 'business,' I suppose you mean that you've come formally to ratify the treaty?" asked Wherry, smiling.
"The treaty? I made no treaty," returned Ordway gravely.
Laughing pleasantly, Wherry invited his visitor to be seated. Then turning away for an instant, he flung himself into a chair beside a little marble topped table upon which stood a half-emptied bottle of rye whiskey and a pitcher of iced water on a metal tray.
"Do you mean to tell me you've forgotten our conversation in that beastly road?" he demanded, "and the prodigal? Surely you haven't forgotten the prodigal? Why, I never heard anything in my life that impressed me more."
"You told me then distinctly that you had no intention of remaining in Tappahannock."
"I'll tell you so again if you'd like to hear it. Will you have a drink?"
Ordway shook his head with an angry gesture.
"What I want to know," he insisted bluntly, "is why you are here at all?"
Wherry poured out a drink of whiskey, and adding a dash of iced water, tossed it down at a swallow.