“You’re a sly dog, Cranshaw, a sly dog,” he muttered, then his voice took on vigor. “What do you mean, anyway? You needn’t think that because your bally bungalow is out here at the edge of town you can threaten me. I won’t stand for it. I’ll discharge you—I’ll show you up before the commissioner—”
“Hold on, man! Great Heavens, don’t you see that I’m in your power?” Cranshaw leaned over the table, his face anxious, pleading.
But behind the anxiety in his gray eyes there was a hard coldness, quickly veiled.
“I’m not threatening you, Hobson—it’s the other way around. I’m satisfied, here in Avarua; I’m the company’s agent, no one knows who I used to be, I’ve a good salary. Come, don’t bear malice! The old life is forgotten, so let the dead bury their dead. Don’t be hard on me, old man! I know you didn’t treat me square, but you married Agnes—I was beaten, and that’s an end to it. Now I’m contented and prospering here. You won’t give me away, will you? You won’t discharge me, send me down into hell a second time?”
Hobson took a cheroot from the table and lit it. His flash of apprehension had vanished altogether.
“No,” he returned slowly, judicially. As he was inspecting the diamond on his finger he did not notice the hard gray eyes across the table. “No, Cranshaw. I didn’t treat you right, I’ll admit, but bygones are bygones. As you say, you’re in my power. I never quite believed you stole that money myself.”
A burst of terrible irony ripped through the mask of Cranshaw’s lean face; but it was gone instantly.
Hobson glanced up with complacent, cunning frankness.
“I misunderstood you, I guess,” he went on heavily. “To tell the truth, I half expected you had got me here to—to—”
He paused, licking his lips. Cranshaw broke out into a loud, ringing laugh.