“Everything of Krutzmacht’s I hold as trustee.”
“Sounds like Carnegie, or was it the Emperor William? . . . Pardon me, that is another formula. We are all trustees, of course.”
Brainard paused and then resumed in a different tone:
“I have been over this matter with Miss Walters and explained my position. I think she understands it quite well. If she can produce proof that she was legally married to the late Herbert Krutzmacht—”
“You would not be as crude as that!” Hollinger exclaimed, opening his eyes. “You know as well as the next man how purely accidental marriage is—the ceremony I mean. The law fastens on that of course—it has to have some nail to cling to—”
“As I told Miss Walters, the trouble with her, and I am afraid with you, too, Hollinger, is that you can’t comprehend an honest man. I happen to be a mere honest man.”
“Pray, don’t believe I doubted it.”
“Just plain, old-fashioned, vulgar honest,” Brainard continued irascibly. “Neither of you seem to understand that simple fact. You proceed on two false assumptions,—first that I am a crook and second that I am a coward—I might add a third, that I am a fool. So long as these false assumptions remain embedded in your mind, we simply can’t do business together.”
He walked suggestively towards the door. Hollinger also rose, a little wearily, a bored look on his face, and chucked his cigar into the fireplace.
“I am sorry,” he said gently, “that we have succeeded in straining your sense of humor. . . . The trouble with you virtuous people is that you bristle so easily at the least touch. I should think that Virtue would be more self-satisfying to its practitioners. Now I don’t bristle because you assume that I am a petty blackmailer and am trying to get money for Miss Walters in order to share with her. That’s what you think—confess it!”