should be suspicious of your convictions and even of my own ———”
Davenport Carr swung round on his heel, stamped along the verandah to the steps and down them to relieve his feelings, and then after a minute, he stamped up again.
“Get out of that thing, Barrington,” he shouted.
But Dane turned wearily away from him with a gesture of impatience that showed his visitor what a fool he was making of himself. He dropped down into the nearest chair making a desperate effort at control.
“Won’t you have a whisky, and tell me what it is you wish to say,” said Dane, very quietly.
“I won’t drink—thanks.” Carr sat for some minutes alternately diverted and irritated by the fantail which kept squeaking at him.
“I came to appeal to you, Barrington, if you have a spark of decency left in you. You’ve lived a hot life and you know the world as well as I do. I didn’t come here to blame you for being attracted by Valerie. I wish to be fair. Benton told me he begged you to go on the paper, and I’ve no doubt that she met you half-way. And I could have overlooked—well—some secret meetings with you both thrown together up here. God knows I’ve done things I don’t care to think about. But you should never have got her talked about. That is the thing I can’t forgive. And I liked and trusted you. Now this with my daughter. You should have gone away in the beginning.”
The moderation in this impressed Dane. He had not quite expected it.
“I did, Carr. I did go away.”
“Well, you came back, then.”
“Yes, I came back.” He turned in the hammock and looked out into the garden. The light on his face ar-
