."

Jeff turned upon him.

"Jim," said he quietly, "what's the matter?"

"Nothing's the matter," said Reardon, blustering. "My dear boy! I'm no
end glad to see you."

"Oh, no," said Jeff. "No, you're not. You've kicked me out. What's the
reason? My late residence? Oh, come on, man! Didn't expect to see me?
Didn't want to? That it?"

Suddenly the telephone rang, and the English man-servant came out and
said, with a perfect decorum:

"Mrs. Blake at the telephone, sir."

Jeff was looking at Reardon when he got the message and saw his small
blue eyes suffused and the colour hot in his cheeks. The blond well-kept
man seemed to be swelling with embarrassment.

"Excuse me," he said, got up and went inside, and Blake heard his voice
in brief replies.

When he came back, he looked harassed, fatigued even. His colour had
gone down and left him middle-aged. Jeff had not only been awaiting him,
but his glance had, as well. His eyes were fixed upon the spot where
Reardon's face, when he again occupied his chair, would be ready to be
interrogated.

"What Mrs. Blake?" Jeff asked.

Reardon sat down and fussed with the answer.

"What Mrs. Blake?" he repeated, and flicked a spot of dust from his
trousered ankle lifted to inspection.

"Yes," said Jeff, with an outward quiet. "Was that my wife?"

Again the colour rose in Reardon's face. It was the signal of an emotion
that gave him courage.

"Why, yes," he said, "it was."

"What did she want?"

"Jeff," said Reardon, "it's no possible business of yours what Esther
wants."

"You call her Esther?"

"I did then."

An outraged instinct of possession was rising in Reardon. Esther
suddenly meant more to him than she had in all this time when she had
been meaning a great deal. Alston Choate had power to rouse this
primitive rage in him, but he could always conquer it by reasoning that
Alston wouldn't take her if he could get her. There were too many
inherited reserves in Alston. Actually, Reardon thought, Alston wouldn't
really want a woman he had to take unguardedly. But here was the man
who, by every rigour of conventional life, had a right to her. It could
hardly be borne. Reardon wasn't used to finding himself dominated by
primal impulses. They weren't, his middle-aged conclusions told him,
safe. But now he got away from himself slightly and the freedom of it,
while it was exciting, made him ill at ease. The impulse to speak really
got the better of him.

"Look h