"I am not even sure that I shall try."
"What then?" said West. "Are you suggesting that the woman you love should marry an ex-convict—a notorious swindler, a blackguard?"
"I think," Babbacombe answered firmly, "that she ought to be allowed to decide that point."
"Allowed to ruin herself without interference," substituted West, sneering faintly. "Well, I don't agree with you, and I shall never give her the opportunity. You won't move me from that if you argue till Doomsday. So, in heaven's name, take what the gods offer, and leave me alone. Marry her. Give her all a good woman ever wants—a happy home, a husband who worships her, and children for her to worship, and you will soon find that I have dropped below the horizon."
He swung round again to the fire, and drove the poker hard into the coals.
"And find another agent as soon as possible," he said; "a respectable one this time, one who won't let you down when you are not looking, who won't call you a fool when you make mistakes—in short, a gentleman. There are plenty of them about. But they are not to be found in the world's rubbish heap. There's nothing but filth and broken crockery there."
He ended with his brief, cynical laugh, and Babbacombe knew that further discussion would be vain. For good or ill the swindler had made his decision, and he realised that no effort of his would alter it. To attempt to do so would be to beat against a stone wall—a struggle in which he might possibly hurt himself, but which would make no difference whatever to the wall.
Reluctantly he abandoned the argument, and prepared to take his departure.
But later, as he drove home, the man's words recurred to him and dwelt long in his memory. Their bitterness seemed to cloak something upon which no eye had ever looked—a regret unspeakable, a passionate repentance that found no place.