onger counterbalance the involuntary mischief:
hasn't for some time past: can't you see it for yourself? One
has only to watch the change coming over her, to look into her
eyes--"

"Really, if you'll excuse my saying so, you seem to have looked
into them a little too often yourself."

Val waited to take out his case and light a cigarette. He
offered one to Hyde--"Won't you?"

"No, thanks: if you've done I'll be moving on."

"Why I haven't really begun yet. You make me nervous--it's a
rotten thing to say to any man, and doubly difficult from me to
you--and I express myself badly, But I must chance being called
impertinent. The trouble is with your cousin. If you had heard
him last night. . . . He's madly jealous."

"Of me? Last night?" Lawrence gave a short laugh: this time he
really was amused.

"Dangerously jealous."

"There's not room for a shadow of suspicion. Go and interview
Selincourt's servant if you like, or nose around the Continental."

"Well," said Val, coaxing a lucifer between his cupped palms,
"I dare say it'll come to that. I've done a good deal of
Bernard's dirty work. Some one has to do it for the sake of a
quiet life. His suspicions aren't rational, you know."

"I should think you put them into his head."

"I?" the serene eyes widened slightly, irritating Lawrence by
their effect of a delicacy too fastidious for contempt. For this
courtesy, of finer grain than his own sarcasm, made him itch to
violate and soil it, as mobs will destroy what they never can
possess. "Need we drag in personalities? He was jealous of you
before you came to Wanhope. He fancies or pretends to fancy that
you were in love with Mrs. Clowes when you were boy and girl.
We're not dealing with a sane or normal nature: he was
practically mad last night--he frightened me. May I give you,
word for word, what he said? That he let you stay on because he
meant to give his wife rope enough to hang herself."

"What do you want me to do?" said Lawrence after a pause.

"To leave Wanhope."

More at his ease than Val, in spite of the disadvantage of his
evening dress, Lawrence stood looking down at him with brilliant
inexpressive eyes. "Is it your own idea that I stayed on at
Wanhope to make love to Laura?"

"If I answer that, you'll tell me that I'm meddling with what is
none of my business, and this time you'll be right."

"No: after going so far, you owe me a reply."

"Well then, I've never been abl