“You misread that,” Holman said, not looking at him. “I don’t deal in consciences. I fancied you were likely game to fall to the lovely Honor’s charm. That was in my mind when I watched you fooling about with that girl on the beach. You will agree, I imagine, that I would be scarcely likely to engage in a dangerous intrigue in co-operation with a girl like Honor?”
“I prefer,” Matheson answered brusquely, “to leave Miss Krige’s name out of this. I didn’t, as a matter of fact, come here to discuss this ugly business, but merely to explain my reasons for not fulfilling my undertaking, and to return your advance, minus my travelling expenses. That,” he said, rising and placing a note on the desk, “finishes everything between us.”
“As you will, of course.” Holman made a gesture with his shoulders. “It seems useless for me to say anything. I don’t attempt explanations twice. You have taken an outrageous tone and closed every door upon a possible understanding.”
“I understand as much as is necessary,” Matheson replied. “I’m on watch now. If any ill results follow upon your mischievous activities you can regard me as an enemy. I’ll track you down, and fix the thing on you.”
Holman rang the bell at his elbow sharply.
“I really can’t waste time while you talk nonsense,” he said. “Your abuse of me is absurd. If it were less ridiculous I should resent it more effectively.”
He turned back to the desk as the door opened to admit the clerk, and, speaking over his shoulder, curtly directed the astonished youth to show the visitor out Matheson, when he emerged from the winding intricacies of the airless passage into the sunlight, had a feeling that he had not so much closed that episode as broken an insincere friendship and started an open feud.