"Sometimes you do: sometimes you are not half smart enough!"
Furneaux barked the taunt like a dog at him.
Of the two, the big bluff man of Anglo-Saxon breed, mystified and saddened though he was, showed more self-control than the excitable little man more French than English.
"This is an occasion when I leave the smartness to you, Furneaux," he said bitterly, "though there is a sort of clever duplicity which ought to be drained out of the blood, even if it cost a limb, or a life."
"Ah, you prove yourself a trusty friend—loyal to the backbone!"
"For Heaven's sake, make no appeal to our friendship!"
"What! Appeal? I? Oh, this is too much!"
"You are trying me beyond endurance. Can't you understand? Why keep up this farce of pretense?"
There was genuine emotion in Winter's voice, but Furneaux's harsh laugh mingled with the soughing of the laden branches that tossed in the wind.
"Farce, indeed!" he cried. "I refuse to continue it. Go, then, and be punished—you deserve it—you, whom I trusted more than a brother."