“That’s panic. I know the feeling. I’ve had it myself once or twice, in those solitudes; but”—he hesitated, carefully holding his cigar over the little ash-tray on the table, and knocking the ashes from it with a deliberation that hid his eyes from Faunce—“well, I haven’t yielded to it, that’s all!”
“I did. I don’t want to excuse myself; I know well enough that you’re not the man to excuse—what I did. I’ve often thought that I must have been mad—stark, staring mad!”
Overton smoked for a while in a silence that seemed to Faunce a good deal worse than speech.
“Suppose we let that drop, eh!” he said at length. “It’s over and done with, and if we’re to go on at all we’ve got to forget it. But there’s another side to it—a side that I wanted to see you about. You’re married. There’ll be some danger of this—this thing injuring you. Now, what I wanted to say, and to say strongly, is this—we mustn’t let it hurt your wife!”
Faunce raised his head with a look of such sudden anguish that it astonished Overton. He had not been considering Arthur, only Diane; but now he turned in his chair and looked attentively at the man himself. Faunce, meanwhile, forced himself to speak.
“You saw her to-day. Did you tell her?”
“Of course not! I’m not cad enough for that.”
“You might well tell her without being a cad. There’s no reason for you to spare me. I didn’t spare you!”
“There are a great many reasons why I should spare her, though!” Overton retorted dryly.
Faunce bit his lip. The implication was plain—Overton had more consideration for Faunce’s wife than Faunce had himself.