“You will sail to-morrow for Liverpool. I will give you explicit instructions to-night. Go prepared for an extended stay abroad.”
For the first time Spurrier’s face paled and insurrection flared in his pupils.
“Sail for Europe to-morrow!” he exclaimed vehemently. “I’ll see you damned first! Doesn’t it occur to you that a man has his human side? I have a wife and a home and when I am ordered to leave them for an indefinite time I’m entitled to a breathing space in which to set my own affairs in shape. I am willing enough to undertake your bidding—but not to-morrow.”
Spurrier paused at the end of his outbreak and stood looking down at the seated figure, which to all intents and purposes might have been the god that held, for him, life and death in his hand.
And as he looked Spurrier thought he had never seen such glacial coldness and merciless indifference 267 in any human face. He had known this man in the thundering of passion before which the walls about him seemed to tremble, but this manifestation of adamant implacability was new, and he realized that he had invited destruction in defying it.
“As you please,” replied Harrison crisply, “but it’s to-morrow or not at all. I’ve already outlined the alternative and since you refuse, our business seems concluded. Next time you feel disposed to talk or think of what you’re entitled to, remember that my view is different. All your claims stand forfeit in my judgment. You are entitled to just what I choose to offer—and no more.”
The chief glanced toward the door with a glance of dismissal, and the door became to Spurrier the emblem of finality. Yet he did not at once move toward it.
“I appreciate the need of prompt obedience, where there is an urge of haste,” he persisted, “but if a few days wouldn’t imperil results, I want those days to make a flying trip to Kentucky and to my wife.”
The face of the seated man remained obdurately set but his eyes blazed again with a note of personal anger.
“At a time when I was reasonably interested, you chose to leave me unenlightened about your domestic arrangements. Now I can claim no concern in them. Most wives, however, permit their husbands such latitude of movement as business requires. If yours does not it is your own misfortune. I think that’s all.”