“Strange as it may sound, I am inclined to believe you.”
Grant said nothing. He wanted to get up and pitch Ingerman into the road.
“But who else will take that charitable view?” purred the other, in that suave voice which so ill accorded with his thin lips and slightly hooked nose.
“I really don’t care,” was the weary answer.
“Not at the moment, perhaps. You have had a trying day, no doubt. My visit at its close cannot be helpful. But—”
“I am feeling rather tired mentally,” interrupted Grant, “so you will oblige me by not raising too many points at once. Why should you imagine that conversation with you in particular should add to my supposed distress?”
“Doesn’t it?”
“No.”
“Why, then, may I ask, do you so obviously resent my questions? Who has so much right to put them as I?”
Grant found that he must bestir himself. Thus far, the honors lay with this rather sinister-looking yet quiet-mannered visitor.