He took a paper from the pocket of his smoking jacket and referred to it occasionally.
"You owe me now about fourteen thousand pounds?"
"Yes, it is roughly that."
"Please correct me if I am wrong in any point. Your salary at the British Museum is a thousand pounds a year, and you make about fifteen hundred more."
"Yes, about that, but how do you——"
"I have made it my business to know everything, Professor. For example, they are about to offer you knighthood."
Llwellyn stirred uneasily, and the hand which stretched out for another cigarette shook a little.
"I need hardly point out to you," the cold words went on, and a certain sternness began to enforce them, "I need hardly point out that if I were to take certain steps, your position would be utterly ruined."
"Bankruptcy need not entirely ruin a man."
"It would ruin you. You see I know where the money has gone. Your private tastes are nothing to me, and it is not my business if you choose to spend a fortune on a cocotte. But in your position, as the very mainspring and arm of the Higher Criticism of the Bible, the revelations which would most certainly be made would ruin you irreparably. Your official posts would all go at once, your name would become a public scandal everywhere. In England one may do just what one likes if only one does not in any way, by reason of position or attainments, belong to the nation. You do belong to the nation. You can never defy public opinion. With the ethical point of view I have nothing personally to do. But to speak plainly, in the eyes of the great mass of English people you would be stamped as an irredeemably vicious man, if everything came out. That is what they would call you. At one blow everything—knighthood, honour, place—all would flash away. Moreover, you would have to give up the other side of your life. There would be no more suppers with Phryne or rides to Richmond in the new motor-car."