"The past be damned!" Lorraine exclaimed. "I've forgot it—buried it. So far as she is concerned, it never existed. But——" he brought his fist down on the table till the glasses jumped and rattled—"it's another thing with Amherst!—it's another thing with Amherst! Sometime, Devereux, sometime——" he ended with a gesture.
"I know how you feel, old man," said Warwick soothingly, "and I reckon I'd feel like you do; but Amherst is gone, and I don't imagine will be back for years—if ever. You just forget him. If you had done something at the time the law would have been lenient—but not now. Moreover, it will only renew the scandal and react upon Stephanie. Oh! I know it's hard to let him go—but it's the wise course now.—If only you had broken his head at the time, or filled him full of lead! Now your opportunity is gone, and you must put the idea away from you."
Lorraine beat on the table and said nothing; and Devereux, after watching him a moment, said nothing more. Lorraine was a weak character, whom opposition sometimes makes the more determined. And while Warwick did not care particularly for him, he wanted to save Stephanie the embarrassment that a revival of the affair would be sure to cause. So far as the two men were concerned, they might fight it out and welcome—and if they killed each other, it would not be much loss to the world.
From which it may be seen that Pendleton's view-point was the view-point of Devereux—as well as of most of the men.
Presently Lorraine spoke.
"I wonder where Amherst is?" he said.
"Abroad," Devereux answered.
"I mean, where abroad?"
"In Siberia or the Congo or Australia or anywhere that's far off. I should bury myself."
"More than likely he is in London or Paris," Lorraine insisted.