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By Root 23568 0

well what was between us, but I did not see why I should make the first move; for I had a grievance too, an old one. So I sat back on my sofa and jotted down in my notebook the heads of our conversation at the inn while it was fresh in my memory, and strove to draw conclusions. But the silence continuing and becoming absurd, I threw my pride to the winds, and my notebook on the table.

'I say, Davies,' I said, 'I'm awfully sorry I chaffed you about Fräulein Dollmann.' (No answer.) 'Didn't you see I couldn't help it?'

'I wish to Heaven we had never come in here,' he said, in a hard voice; 'it comes of landing _ever_.' (I couldn't help smiling at this, but he wasn't looking at me.) 'Here we are, given away, moved on, taken in charge, arranged for like Cook's tourists. I couldn't follow your game--too infernally deep for me, but--'That stung me.

'Look here,' I said, 'I did my best. It was you that muddled it. Why did you harp on ducks?'

'We could have got out of that. Why did you harp on everything idiotic--your letter, the Foreign office, the Kormoran, the wreck, the--?'

'You're utterly unreasonable. Didn't you see what traps there were? I was driven the way I went. We started unprepared, and we're jolly well out of it.'

Davies drove on blindly. 'It was bad enough telling all about the channels and exploring--'

'Why, you agreed to that yourself!'

'I gave in to you. We can't explore any more now.

'There's the wreck, though.'

'Oh, hang the wreck! It's all a blind, or he wouldn't have made so much of it. There are all these channels to be--'

'Oh, hang the channels! I know we wanted a free hand, but we've got to go to Norderney some time, and if Dollmann's away--'

'Why did you harp on Miss Dollmann?' said Davies.

We had worked round, through idle recrimination, to the real point of departure. I knew Davies was not himself, and would not return to himself till the heart of the matter was reached.

'Look here,' I said, 'you brought me out here to help you, because, as you say, I was clever, talked German, and--liked yachting (I couldn't resist adding this). But directly you really _want_ me you turn round and go for me.'

'Oh, I didn't mean all that, really,' said Davies; 'I'm sorry--I was worried.'

'I know; but it's your own fault. You haven't been fair with me. There's a complication in this business that you've never talked about. I've never pressed you because I thought you would confide in me. You--'

'I know I haven't,' said Davies.

'Well, you see the result. Our hand was forced. To have said nothing about Dollmann was folly--to have said he tried to wreck you was equal folly. The story we agreed on was the best and safest, and you told it splendidly. But for two reasons I had to harp on the daughter--one because your manner when they were mentioned was so confused as to imperil our whole position. Two, because your story, though the safest, was, at the best, suspicious. Even on your own showing Dollmann treated you badly--discourteously, say: though you pretended not to have seen it. You want a motive to neutralize that, and induce you to revisit him in a friendly way. I supplied it, or rather I only encouraged von Brüning to supply it.'

'Why revisit him, after all?' said Davies.

'Oh, come--'

'But don't you see what a hideous fix you've put me in? How caddish I feel about it?'

I did see, and I felt a cad myself, as his full distress came home to me. But I felt, too, that, whosesoever the fault, we had drifted into a ridiculous situation, and were like characters in one of those tiresome plays where misunderstandings are manufactured and so carefully sustained that the audience are too bored to wait for the _dénouement._ You can do that on the stage; but we wanted our _dénouement._

'I'm very sorry,' I said, 'but I wish you had told me all about it. Won't you now? Just the bare, matter-of-fact truth. I hate sentiment, and so do you.'

'I find it very difficult to tell people things,' said Davies, 'things like this.' I waited. 'I did like her--very much.' Our eyes met for a second, in which all was said that