“So-o!” he said after a long silence. Then he held out his hand. “I may have Betty’s letter?”
Woodward Kane withheld it and again that look of pleasure was visible in his eyes. “Just a moment, please. I should like to have my own say out first. I shall have to be brutal, I am afraid. In these matters there is nothing for it but frankness. Your infidelity has been common talk for some time. The story of it first came to Betty’s ears on the evening when she came to me two months ago. Since then there has been but one possible course.”
Jasper kept another silence, more difficult, however, than his last. His pallor was noticeable. “You say my—infidelity is common talk. There has been a name used?”
“Your protégée from Wyoming—Jane West.”
Jasper was on his feet, and Woodward too rose, jerkily holding up a hand. “No excitement, please,” he begged. “Let us conduct this unfortunate interview like gentlemen, if possible.”
Jasper laughed. “As you say—if possible. Why, man, it was Betty who helped me bring Miss West to New York, it was Betty who helped me to install her here, it was Betty who chose the furnishings for her apartment, who helped her buy her clothes, who engaged her maid, who gave her most of her training. This is the most preposterous, the most filthy perversion of the truth. Betty must know it better than any one else. Come, now, Woodward, there’s something more in it than this?” Jasper had himself in hand, but it was easy now to see the effort it cost him. The veins of his forehead were swollen.
“I shall not discuss the matter with you. Betty has excellent evidence, unimpeachable witnesses. There is no doubt in my mind, nor in the minds of her lawyers, that she will win her suit and get her divorce, her release. Of course, you will not contest—”
Jasper stopped in his pacing which had begun to take the curious, circling, weaving form characteristic of him, and, standing now with his head thrown back, he spoke sonorously.
“Do you imagine for one instant, Kane,—does Betty imagine for one instant,—that I shall not contest?”
This changed the look of cold pleasure in Woodward’s eyes, which grew blank again. “Do you mean me to understand—Naturally, I took it for granted that you would act as most gentlemen act under the circumstances.”