“How did you keep her from knowing?”
Mr. Ewing had not wanted to ask—had hoped the point would explain itself—and Corey looked for a moment as if he might be planning an evasion—then braced himself and looked Mr. Ewing straight in the eyes. A faint expression of scorn came round his mouth, as if he spoke of another—a scoundrel who hardly deserved his scorn.
“I left letters—dated ahead—with the scrubwoman at the laboratory to mail.” He said it, took his eyes from Mr. Ewing’s, and then he appeared to wait.
Mr. Ewing sat there filled with a kind of amazement, touched with fear for what should come next, and suddenly he became conscious that Corey was watching him with what seemed a tremendous anxiety, waiting for him to speak. And a moment later, apparently no longer able to bear that silence, Corey leaned nervously toward Mr. Ewing, and asked in the tone of one seeking an answer of utmost importance: “You don’t see it? You don’t see what she saw?”
“See what?” said Mr. Ewing—“what who saw?” Yet he knew that Corey had meant his wife. It was she who had found the Croix ... but what did he mean she had seen?
“Don’t keep it back—just to be decent! She said it was plain, plain enough for anybody to see. What I want to know is if everybody knew it but me!”
“Knew what?” cried poor Mr. Ewing, lost more completely now than before.
“Knew why I’ve done all the things I’ve done—run all the risks. Why I went over there this time, in August, without letting her know—God knows I didn’t know why!—why I’ve always gone!”
“Why have you?” The question asked itself.
“Because I wanted the decorations! The damned orders and medals and things! Because I couldn’t resist getting a new one—wherever I saw a chance. Do you believe a man could be as—as rotten as that, all his life, and not know it himself?”