“My God!  Don’t say that!  Aren’t you satisfied with what you’ve done to me without that!”

“I haven’t done anything to you.  Whatever has been done, you have deliberately done to yourself.  I have no desire to hurt or injure you.  But—­what are you thinking about, to imagine that I could continue to live here—­on this money?”

“You contradict yourself twice in the same breath!  You just said that you would let the courts settle that question—­”

“As to the Weyland estate’s claim, yes.  But I do not let the courts regulate my own sense of honor.”

Surface, elbows on the table, buried his face in his hands.  Queed slowly rose, a heart of lead in his breast.  He had failed.  He had offered all that he had, and it had been unhesitatingly kicked aside.  And, unless long litigation was started, and unless it ultimately succeeded, Henry G. Surface would keep his loot.

He glanced about the pleasant little dining-room, symbol of the only home he had ever known, where, after all, he had done great work, and been not unhappy.  Personally, he was glad to leave it, glad to stand out from the shadow of the ruin of Henry G. Surface.  Nevertheless it was a real parting, the end of an epoch in his life, and there was sadness in that.  Sadness, too, he saw, deeper than his repugnance and anger, in the bowed figure before him, the lost old man whom he was to leave solitary henceforward.  Saddest of all was the consciousness of his own terrible failure.

He began speaking in a controlled voice.

“This interview is painful to us both.  It is useless to prolong it.  I—­have much to thank you for—­kindness which I do not forget now and shall not forget.  If you ever reconsider your decision—­if you should ever need me for anything—­I shall be within call.  And now I must leave you ... sorrier than I can say that our parting must be like this.”  He paused:  his gaze rested on the bent head, and he offered, without hope, the final chance.  “Your mind is quite made up?  You are sure that—­this—­is the way you wish the matter settled?”

Surface took his face from his hands and looked up.  His expression was a complete surprise.  It was neither savage nor anguished, but ingratiating, complacent, full of suppressed excitement.  Into his eyes had sprung an indescribable look of cunning, the look of a broken-down diplomat about to outwit his adversary with a last unsuspected card.

“No, no!  Of course I’ll not let you leave me like this,” he said, with a kind of trembling eagerness, and gave a rather painful laugh.  “You force my hand.  I had not meant to tell you my secret so soon.  You can’t guess the real reason why I refuse to give my money to Miss Weyland, even when you ask it, now can you?  You can’t guess, now can you?”

“I think I can.  You had rather have the money than have me.”

“Not a bit of it.  Nothing of the kind!  Personally I care nothing for the money.  I am keeping it,” said the old man, lowering his voice to a chuckling whisper, “for you!” He leaned over the table, fixing Queed with a gaze of triumphant cunning.  “I’m going to make you my heir! Leave everything I have in the world to you!”