Paul moved uneasily in his chair. His companion had struck the right note. This large man was happiest when he was tiring himself out.
“Yes; but about Etta?” he said.
And the sound of his voice made Steinmetz wince. There is nothing so heartrending as the sight of dumb suffering.
“You must see her,” answered he reflectively. “You must see her, of course. She may be able to explain.”
He looked across the table beneath his shaggy gray eyebrows. Paul did not at that moment look a likely subject for explanations—even the explanations of a beautiful woman. But there was one human quantity which in all his experience Karl Steinmetz had never successfully gauged—namely, the extent of a woman’s power over the man who loves, or at one time has loved her.
“She cannot explain away Stipan Lanovitch’s ruined life. She can hardly explain away a thousand deaths from unnatural causes every winter, in this province alone.”
This was what Steinmetz dreaded—justice.
“Give her the opportunity,” he said.
Paul was looking out of the window. His singularly firm mouth was still and quiet—not a mouth for explanations.
“I will, if you like,” he said.