Nothing was further from his desire than to become involved in a tangle of reminiscences, so he became a little brutal.
'I have the ruby; that is the main point.'
'Are you proud of having robbed me--the girl who was to have been your wife?'
'You would have robbed me.'
'Even supposing that to be true, does that entitle you to throw aside all those canons of honour to which you have always given me to understand you were such a stickler, and become--a thief? Oh, Guy!'
'I do not propose to bandy words with you. I know of old your capacity to make black seem white--you were ever an actress, May. How the ruby originally came into your possession I cannot say.'
'It's not a pretty story, Guy; scarcely to your uncle's credit.'
'But you were perfectly well aware that morally it was mine. It was nothing to you; it was all the world to me. I believe that you refused to let me have it precisely because you knew that your refusal might entail my ruin; and so your cup of revenge might be filled to the full. Under those circumstances I hold that I was justified in using any and every means to save myself from being utterly undone by the whim of a revengeful woman.'
'I meant to let you have it.'
'That was not the impression you left upon my mind last night.'