"Stop!" broke in Vicot. "I understand what you're going to say."
"So much the better: we're saved the necessity of going into unpleasant details. Suffice it to say that what happened, happened. Already, as we walked together, I'd said enough to impress my mentality upon hers, to make her mind my property, and her will subject to mine. When I left her I meant to go back, to help and uplift her, to marry her, perhaps. Who knows? I was very young then and a good deal of a pedant."
"So you never went back," said Vicot. "You left her—like that!"
"Just as you'd left her, the same day," retorted Radwalader, his complacency quite restored. "Don't let's get to recriminations. I fancy it's a case of pot and kettle."
"All this doesn't prove that the boy's not mine," exclaimed the other, with sudden energy.
Radwalader rose, came quite close to him, and said with a little sneer:
"Do you think it's likely? It's a question of the simplest arithmetic. Vane's not yet twenty-one—and what have you told me? Look back—calculate."
Vicot made no reply. He was peering at Radwalader's face, and presently he whispered:
"My God! He's even got your eyes!"