Aylmer bowed, but preferred, he said, to stand. There was a significance in his tone which did not escape, was, indeed, not meant to escape, his companion. The old gentleman gave him a keen and somewhat disquieted look.
"But I cannot sit if you do not," he protested. He gave the back of the chair a seductive little pat. "Let me persuade you," he pleaded anxiously.
"Mr. Van Arlen," said Aylmer, slowly, "I am not received here as a friend. I prefer, therefore, to give my message standing, as a matter of business."
The gray, furrowed face flushed.
"My dear sir!" protested the old man. "My dear sir!"
"You obviously evade my hand; you do not desire to ask me inside your house?" insisted Aylmer, quietly.
The other raised a hand which shook deprecatingly. But Aylmer forestalled his attempt at speech.
"You do these things, or rather you avoid doing them, without any personal cause of complaint against me, but because my name is what it is?"
Van Arlen's hand fell to his side. The pained remonstrative look faded from his eyes. His lips, which had quivered, grew suddenly set and were firmly pressed together. He seemed to increase in stature.
"Is not my reason good?" he cried sharply, as if some relentlessly passionate impulse mastered all restraint.