Listening, Harry Randall straightened. His lips closed tightly for a second. “You mean, I presume,” the words were painfully exact, “to remind me that you hold my note for four hundred dollars, and to imply—” he halted significantly.
For a moment the other man said nothing, the face of him told nothing. Then deliberately, from an inner pocket, he drew out a leather wallet, from the wallet a strip of paper, and held it so the other could read. Still without a word he tore it to bits.
“The devil take your note!” he observed, succinctly and without heat.
“Mr. Roberts, you—” Randall’s face was crimson, “you—”
“Yes—I—”
“You didn’t mean—that, then, really?”
Roberts said nothing.
“I’m grateful for the confidence, believe me. 201 It’s not misplaced, either. Accept my assurance of that too.”
“My name is Roberts, not Shylock. I told you before I am American born, of American parents.”
“I beg your pardon,” abjectly. The red had left Randall’s face and in its place, as on a mirror, was forming another look, of comprehension—and more. “Yet you—advised; and if not that—” of a sudden he got to his feet. Something was coming he knew to a certainty—something unexpected, vital—and he felt better able so to meet it. “Just what did you mean?”