"Well, I might say that I have made you what you are, and——"
"That's true; the truest thing you ever said," snapped Brouillard.
"And, I was going to add, I can unmake you just as easily. But I don't want to be savage with you. All I'm asking is a little information first, and a little judicious help afterward. What are your orders from the department?"
Brouillard got up and stood over the stocky man in the office chair, with the black eyes blazing.
"Mr. Cortwright, I said a moment ago that you have made me what I am, and you have. I am infinitely a worse man than you are, because I know better and you don't. It is no excuse for me that I have had a motive which I haven't explained to you, because, as I once told you, you couldn't understand it in a thousand years. The evil has been done and the consequences, to you, to me, and to every one in this cursed valley are certain. Facing them as I am obliged to face them, I am telling you—but what's the use? You can't make a tool of me any longer—that's all. You must cook your meat over your own fire. I'm out of it."
"I can smash you," said the man in the chair, quite without heat.
"No, you can't even do that," was the equally cool retort. "No man's fate is in another man's hands. If you choose to set in motion the machinery which will grind me to a small-sized villain of the county-jail variety, it is I myself who will furnish every foot-pound of the power that is applied."
He was moving toward the door, but Cortwright stopped him.
"One more word before you go, Brouillard. It is to be war between us from this on?"
"I don't say that: It would be awkward for Miss Genevieve. Let it be armed neutrality if you like. Don't interfere with me and I won't interfere with you."