ff openly; but of the baseness of
which Val accused him he knew himself to be incapable.

"Really?" he said, looking down at Val out of his wide black
eyes, so like Bernard's except that they concealed all that
Bernard revealed. "So now we understand each other. I know why
you want me to go and you know why I want to stay."

"If I've done you an injustice I'm sorry for it."

"Oh, don't apologize," said Lawrence laughing. His manner
bewildered Val, who could make nothing of it except that it was
incompatible with any sense of guilt.

"But, then," the question broke from Val involuntarily, "why did
you stay?"

"Why do you?"

"I?"

"Yes, you. Did it never strike you that I might retort with a tu
quoque?"

"How on earth--?"

"You were perhaps a little preoccupied," said Lawrence with his
deadly smile. "I suggest, Val, that whether Clowes was jealous or
not--you were."

"I?"

"Yes, my dear fellow:" the Jew laughed: it gave him precisely the
same satisfaction to violate Val's reticence, as it might have
given one of his ancestors to cut Christian flesh to ribbons in
the markets of the East: "and who's to blame you? Thrown so much
into the society of a very pretty and very unhappy woman, what
more natural than for you to--how shall I put it?--constitute
yourself her protector? Set your mind at rest. You have only
one rival, Val--her husband."

He enjoyed his triumph for a few moments, during which Stafford
was slowly taking account with himself.

"I'm not such a cautious moralist as you are," Lawrence pursued,
"and so I don't hold a pistol to your head and give you ten
minutes to clear out of Wanhope, as you did to mine. On the
contrary, I hope you'll long continue to act as Bernard's agent.
I'm sure he'll never get a better one. As for Laura, she won't
discover your passion unless you proclaim it, which I'm sure
you'll never do. She looks on you as a brother--an affectionate
younger brother invaluable for running errands. And you'll
continue to fetch and carry, enduring all things from her and
Bernard much as you do from me. When I do go--which won't be
just yet--I shan't feel the faintest compunction about leaving
you behind. I'm sure Bernard's honour will be as safe in your
hands as it is in mine."

And thus one paved the way to pleasant relations with ones
brother-in-law. The civilized second self, always a dismayed and
cynical spectator of Hyde's lapses into savagery, raised its
voice