"However, you have just admitted that what you told me last June was not the truth."
Again their eyes clashed, and Surface, whose face was slowly losing all its color, even the sallowness, found no sign of yielding in those of the younger man.
Queed resumed: "However, I do not mean that I shall tell her who you are, unless you yourself compel me to. I shall simply let her know that you are known to be alive, within reach of the courts, and in possession of a certain sum of money withheld from the trustee funds. This will enable her to take the matter up with her lawyers and, as I believe, bring it before the courts. If her claim is sustained, she would doubtless give you the opportunity to make restitution through intermediaries, and thus sensational disclosures might be avoided. However, I make you no promises about that."
Surface drew a breath; he permitted his face to show signs of relief. "Since my argument and knowledge carry so little weight with you," he said with a fine air of dignity, "I am willing to let the courts convince you, if you insist. But I do beg—"
Queed cut him short; he felt that he could not bear one of the old man's grandiloquent speeches now. "There is one other thing that must be mentioned," he said in a tired voice. "You understand, of course, that I can live here no longer."
"My God! Don't say that! Aren't you satisfied with what you've done to me without that!"
"I haven't done anything to you. Whatever has been done, you have deliberately done to yourself. I have no desire to hurt or injure you. But—what are you thinking about, to imagine that I could continue to live here—on this money?"
"You contradict yourself twice in the same breath! You just said that you would let the courts settle that question—"
"As to the Weyland estate's claim, yes. But I do not let the courts regulate my own sense of honor."
Surface, elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands. Queed slowly rose, a heart of lead in his breast. He had failed. He had offered all that he had, and it had been unhesitatingly kicked aside. And, unless long litigation was started, and unless it ultimately succeeded, Henry G. Surface would keep his loot.