"You practically said so," returned the collector. "At least your face did." He looked at Jerry, and then turned away to the brown expanse of plain in a manner so stricken and so reproachful that Taberman could not help feeling convicted of consummate wickedness. "I counted on you," he added, in a tone of profoundest pathos.
Jerry was completely nonplussed. He felt that he was being played with; he was angrily conscious that the whole affair was no concern of his, and that he had no business to be dragged into it. Yet he felt no less but rather more keenly that he could not endure the imputation of having encouraged a man in difficulties with a hope of assistance and of having then refused to fulfill them. His youthful blood, moreover, was stirred by the flavor of adventure which came alluringly to his inner sense. For a moment there was a strained silence, and then it was broken by Tab.
"You've mistaken my interest for something else, I'm afraid," he said, trying to speak lightly, and feeling that he was making a mess of it. "It never even occurred to me that I could help you out of this blessed muss; and I don't see that there's anything I can do anyway, except to keep mum about it. Of course that I'd do anyway."
"No use," retorted the archæologist. "If you can help me and won't, after my taking you into my confidence, you—you ruin me."
"Hmm," Jerry observed rather coldly, "that's too subtle for me. I fail to see it in that light. You're no worse off than you were before."
"I'm sure, Mr. Tableman"—
"Taberman," Jerry corrected.
"Pardon me, Mr. Taberman; but you don't see the catena logica by which I arrive at my conclusions!" Mr. Wrenmarsh, both in speech and gestures, was momentarily growing more and more theatrical. "Suppose you should, knowing my story and the law against taking works of art out of the country, tell my case to the police. What then?"
"It would be the trick of a blackguard, of course," Jerry replied promptly, "but"—