Mordaunt’s brows went up.  He said nothing.

But Jack was insistent.  “Did you know that?”

“I did not.”  Very deliberately came Mordaunt’s answer; it held no emotion of any sort.  The subject might have been one of utter indifference to him.

“Then where did you think she was?”

There was an undernote of ferocity in Jack’s question, almost a hint of menace; but Mordaunt seemed unaware of it.

“Forgive me for saying so, Jack,” he said.  “But that is more my affair than yours.  I have nothing whatever to discuss with you, nor do I hold myself answerable to you in any way for my actions.”

“But I do,” Jack said curtly.  “I have always held myself responsible for Chris’s welfare.  And I do so still.”

Mordaunt listened unmoved.  “You can hardly expect me to acknowledge your authority,” he said, “since my responsibility in that respect is greater than yours.”

“I have no desire to dictate to you,” Jack answered quickly.  “But I do claim the right to speak my mind on this matter.  Remember, it was I who first brought you into her life.”

Mordaunt shrugged his shoulders slightly.  “As to that, I am fatalist enough to believe that we should have met in any case.  But isn’t that beside the point?  I have declined to discuss the matter with anyone, and I am not going to make an exception of you.”

“You must,” Jack said.  He threw back his shoulders as if bracing himself for a physical conflict.  He was plainly in earnest.

Mordaunt turned to the table and sat down.  “You are wasting your time,” he said.  “Argument is quite useless.  I have already decided upon my plan of action, and quarrelling with you is no part of it.”

“What is your plan of action?” Jack demanded.

Mordaunt took out his cigarette-case.  “I shall start for Paris in a couple of hours.  Meantime”—­he glanced up—­“I suppose you won’t smoke?  Have you had any breakfast?”

“Then you mean to desert her?” Jack said.

Mordaunt’s face remained immovable.  He began to smoke in dead silence.

Jack’s teeth clenched.  “I am going to have an answer,” he said.

“Very well.”  Coldly the words fell; there was something merciless in their very utterance.  “Then I will answer you; but it is my last word upon the subject.  My wife followed her own choice in leaving me, and it is my intention to abide by her decision.  If you call that desertion—­”

“I do,” Jack broke in passionately.  “It is desertion, nothing less.  She left you—­oh, I know all about it—­she left you because you literally scared her away.  You terrified her into going; there was nothing else for her to do.  She had done nothing wrong.  But you—­you dared to suspect her of Heaven knows what.  You dared to think that Chris—­my Chris—­was capable of playing you false, you who were the only man on earth I thought good enough for her.  And do you know what you have