Gastineau was lighting another cigarette. “No, my dear fellow, you don’t. Because the book I just spoke of has been kept closed to you. I must open it at a certain page, and show you why.”
“Yes?”
Gastineau took a step forward and seated himself on the corner of the writing table. He was half turned away from Herriard. For a few seconds he smoked meditatively and there was silence between them. At length he spoke. “Once upon a time, before my ill-luck,” he laughed,—“I refer to the railway accident—brought me into connection with Mr. Geoffrey Herriard, I was in love, deeply in love, with a certain lady whom I will name in a moment. When I became dead to the world all idea of that sort of thing was out of the question; but the status quo has very strangely and unexpectedly cropped up again. You have followed? Since our acquaintance, my mantle has fallen upon the said Mr. Geoffrey Herriard, and on the whole he has worn it worthily. It is curious that he should moreover have lighted upon a certain favour which I had proposed to pin to the said mantle, and had lost. My friend is welcome to keep the serviceable cloak, but the particular ornament with which he proposes to adorn it I must ask him to give up.”
He paused, and a dead, tense silence followed. Gastineau smoked on nonchalantly, waiting for the other man to speak.
At length the reply came in a low voice.
“You ask me to give it up on the assumption that you have more right to it than I?”
Gastineau nodded. “Just so.”
“I deny it.”
Gastineau rose to his feet and flung the cigarette-end into the fire-place. “I was afraid you might,” he said coolly, as he turned and faced Herriard; then added, “afraid for your sake, not my own.”
The preliminaries were over now, and the fight was to begin in real earnest. Nevertheless Gastineau’s manner was as cool and easy as ever. It was like a light comedian playing, with his characteristic methods, a strong, dramatic part.