He had been sitting brokenly in a chair at the desk where he had signed away his independence, gazing into a new-spilt ink-blot on the polished surface of the desk, seeing visions in its glistening, blue-black pool.
But now he pushed back his chair with a rasping noise and rose decisively to face Larssen.
"We'll call it a month's truce!" he flung out.
"What d'you mean?"
"For a month from now neither you nor I will move further in the Hudson Bay scheme. For a month it'll be hung up."
"Who's to hang it up?"
"I."
"But I've got your signed approval in my pocket. Signed and witnessed!"
"The issue is not yet underwritten." It was a sheer guess, but in Larssen's face Matheson could read that his guess was correct.
"Well?" snapped Larssen.