"Dramatic, but it's a little incomplete, isn't it?" said the Englishman.
Seaforth smiled somewhat dryly, and once more glanced casually towards Deringham. "It may be finished by and by, and I fancy the wind-up will be more dramatic still," he said. "You see the man who would wait for his enemy with only a knife in his hand while his life drained away from him, is scarcely likely to forget an injury."
There was silence for several moments which was broken by a rattle, and a stream of whisky and seltzer dripped from the table.
"Hallo!" said Forel. "Has anything upset you, Deringham?"
Deringham stood up with a little harsh laugh, dabbing It the breast of his shirt with his handkerchief.
"I think the question should apply to my glass, but the room is a trifle hot, and my heart has been troubling me lately," he said.
Forel flung one of the windows open. "I fancy my wife is waiting for us, gentlemen, and I will be with you in a few minutes," he said.
Alton and Seaforth were almost the last to file out of the smoking-room, and when they reached the corridor the former turned upon his comrade with a glint in his half-closed eyes.
"You show a curious taste for a man raised as you have been in the old country," he said. "Now what in the name of thunder made you tell that story?"
Seaforth smiled somewhat inanely. "I don't know; I just felt I had to.
All of us are subject to little weaknesses occasionally."