“I am sorry if anything I have said lends color to that belief,” he answered. “Candidly, I began by assuming that you forfeited any legal right years ago to interfere in behalf of Miss Melhuish, living or dead. Let us, at least, be candid with each other. Miss Melhuish herself told me that you and she had separated by mutual consent.”
“Allow me to emulate your candor. The actual fact is that you weaned my wife’s affections from me.”
“That is a downright lie,” said Grant coolly.
Ingerman’s peculiar temperament permitted him to treat this grave insult far more lightly than Grant’s harmless, if irritating, reference to the police.
“Let us see just what ‘a lie’ signifies,” he said, almost judicially. “If a lady deserts her husband, and there is good reason to suspect that she is, in popular phrase, ‘carrying on’ with another man, how can the husband be lying if he charges that man with being the cause of the domestic upheaval?”
“In this instance a hypothetical case is not called for. Three years ago, Mr. Ingerman, you had parted from your wife. Your name was never mentioned. Apparently, none in my circle had even heard of you. Miss Melhuish had won repute as a celebrated actress. I met her, in a sense, professionally. We became friends. I fancied I was in love with her. I proposed marriage. Then, and not until then, did the ghost of Mr.”—Grant bent forward, and consulted the card—“Mr. Isidor G. Ingerman intrude.”
“So marriage was out of the question?”
“If you expect an answer—yes.”
Ingerman rested the handle of his stick against his lips.
“That isn’t how the situation was represented to me at the time,” he said thoughtfully.