"Oh, I say—perhaps—"
"A woman may gossip with impunity, but a man can't lend himself to a thing like this. You'll be glad no doubt to prove that you had no hand in circulating a villainous scandal; we're giving you the opportunity to clear yourself, Billop."
Sidney was angry; his flaccid face was purple and his watery eyes winked restlessly, but his courage was not equal to the emergency; he was not fond of heroics.
"Oh, I say—I hate a scene, you know."
"So do I," agreed Belhaven grimly, "let's avoid one. We can settle it quietly; make a statement here in writing that you'll discharge the girl from the employ of your family."
"Oh, but that's butting in; you know she's my mother's maid and—"
"Do you prefer to stand for it?"
Belhaven's words snapped clear as a pistol shot. He was standing opposite the culprit, one hand resting on the table, the other hanging at his side. All the agony and piled-up fury of the last few weeks burned in his eyes. The primeval instinct to kill an adversary was mingled, at the moment, with the impulse that makes a man grind a venomous snake under his heel.
"Oh, I say—I think you ought to give a fellow time to—to answer! I'm not the French maid, you know, and my mother—why, my mother manages her own affairs. I don't see but that it's all a devilish bad mix-up and I don't want to commit myself; I don't know what you're driving at anyhow, don't you see?"
"Well, I'm in a position to let you know it. See here, Billop, this has got to stop."