Angus shook his head.
"Don't want to," he replied coldly. "Guess I got all I need worrying out wheat."
The other accepted the denial, and went on—
"Maybe I don't know as much as I ought—at my age. Maybe we've both been too busy—worrying wheat."
Angus smiled coldly. But there was no smile in Hendrie's eyes. He was gazing steadily before him, his cigar poised, forgotten, in his hand. He had definitely addressed himself to Angus, but now he seemed to have forgotten his presence.
"Pshaw! What's the use?" he cried suddenly, with an irritable shift of his position. "It's not the woman's fault—ever. It's the man's—the dirty, low-down cur who can always trade on her weakness. I ought to know. By God! I ought to know."
He picked up a match almost mechanically and struck it. But his cigar remained where it was, and the match was allowed to burn out in his fingers. He threw the end of it away with a vicious movement.
Suddenly he looked up and caught his manager's eyes fixed on him curiously.
"What are you staring at, man?" he cried. Then with sudden heat, "What in hell are you staring at? Do you think me a doddering fool—a weak imbecile? That's it!" he cried, working himself up into a sort of frenzy, and breaking into a laugh, as terrible a sound as Angus remembered to have heard. "I tell you she's not to blame," he went on furiously. "I tell you I'll not give her up. Say, you cold-blooded, herring-bodied Scotchman, have you ever loved a woman in the whole of your grouchy life?" Again he laughed. Again Angus felt the horror of it. "Never!" he went on furiously. "Never, never, never! Love? God, it's hell! Thank your God, you miserable, cold-blooded fish, you are incapable of loving any woman."
He reached out again for a match and struck it. But he threw it away from him at once.