As Oscar closed the door, Armitage crossed to the table, flung down his gauntlets and hat and turned to Claiborne.
“I didn’t expect this of you; I really didn’t expect it. Now that you have found me, what in the devil do you want?”
“I don’t know—I’ll be damned if I know!” and Claiborne grinned, so that the grotesque lines of his soiled countenance roused Armitage’s slumbering wrath.
“You’d better find out damned quick! This is my busy night and if you can’t explain yourself I’m going to tie you hand and foot and drop you down the well till I finish my work. Speak up! What are you doing on my grounds, in my house, at this hour of the night, prying into my affairs and rummaging in my trunks?”
“I didn’t come here, Armitage; I was brought—with a potato sack over my head. There’s the sack on the floor, and any of its dirt that isn’t on my face must be permanently settled in my lungs.”
“What are you doing up here in the mountains—why are you not at your station? The potato-sack story is pretty flimsy. Do better than that and hurry up!”
“Armitage”—as he spoke, Claiborne walked to the table and rested his finger-tips on it—“Armitage, you and I have made some mistakes during our short acquaintance. I will tell you frankly that I have blown hot and cold about you as I never did before with another man in my life. On the ship coming over and when I met you in Washington I thought well of you. Then your damned cigarette case shook my confidence in you there at the Army and Navy Club that night; and now—”
“Damn my cigarette case!” bellowed Armitage, clapping his hand to his pocket to make sure of it.
“That’s what I say! But it was a disagreeable situation,—you must admit that.”
“It was, indeed!”