“Who told you? Iris? Cave? or were you spying?” Each question was fired at me like a bullet.
“Spying on whom?”
“On me, damn you!” Then it broke. The taut line of control which had held in check his anger and his fear broke all at once and the torrent flowed, reckless and overpowering: “You meddling idiot! You spied on me; you found out; you thought you’d be able to stall things by springing it like that. Well, you failed.” I recall thinking, quite calmly, how much I preferred his face in the congested ugliness of rage to its ordinary banality of expression. I was relieved, too, by the storm. I could handle him when he was out of control. I considered my counteroffensive while he shouted at me, accused me of hostility to him, of deviationism from Cavesword and of numerous other crimes. He stopped, finally, for lack of breath.
“I gather,” I said, my voice shaking a little from excitement, “that at some point recently you decided that Cave should apply Cavesword to himself and die, providing us with a splendid example, an undying (I mean no pun) symbol.”
“You know you found out and decided to get in on the act, to force my hand. Now he’ll never do it.”
That was it then. I was relieved to be no longer in the dark. “Cave has refused to kill himself?”
“You bet your sweet life he has.” Paul was beginning to recover his usual poise. “Your little scene gave him the excuse he needed: 'Gene’s right.’” Paul imitated Cave’s voice with startling accuracy and malice. “'Gene’s right. I never did mean for everybody to kill themselves off ... where’d the world be if that happened? Just a few people. That’s all.’ And he’s damned if he’s going to be one of them. 'Hate to set that sort of example.’”
“Well, you’ll have to try something else then.”
“Why did you do it?” Paul’s voice became petulant. “Did Iris put you up to it?”
“Nobody put me up to it.”