Jefferson Edwardes turned toward the fire and stood silent, but his momentary expression of disgust had not escaped the financier and instantly all Hamilton’s cumulative dislike burst into passion.  From the threshold he demanded, “So you listened, did you?”

The visitor replied slowly and with a level voice:  “We had not meant to overhear a private conversation—­but we did hear.”

“I suppose you realize that what you heard in no way concerns you?” The voice was surcharged with challenge, and under its sting Edwardes found self-composure a difficult matter.  He had no habit of turning aside from quarrels which were seemingly thrust upon him, yet he realized that at this juncture he must govern his temper.  For the moment he ignored the question and, with a gaze that met that of the other man in undeviating directness, he responded: 

“I was waiting here to see you, Burton, on a mission which in every way concerns me.”  He raised the girl’s hand to his lips and let his gesture explain his purpose.

But the pent-up animosity of Hamilton Burton could remember only the contemptuous curl he had recognized on the other man’s lips.  He came forward until he stood confronting Edwardes and as he was about to speak Mary interrupted him.  Her voice was vibrant with anger and scorn.  “If any one should feel called upon to make explanations and apologies, Hamilton, it is yourself ... after what we have just heard.  It was monstrous.”  She shuddered.

Hamilton refused to be turned aside.  In a tense voice he demanded of the girl’s fiance:  “Do you add your self-righteous approval to that sentiment?”

A sense of being intolerably bullied seized Edwardes and made red spots of anger dance before his eyes.  His fists clenched and he took a forward step, then with tensed muscles he halted and stood there so close to the other that their eyes locked at a range of inches.  Very deliberately he inquired:  “Are you determined to force me into a quarrel, Burton?  I’m seeking to avoid it.”

“I am asking you a question and I demand an answer.”

Edwardes’ voice rang out passionately.  “I am no prig who supplies unasked codes of conduct to others—­even when they need it as badly as you do.  But since you ask—­yes, I agree fully, and I add this to boot.  You are the most appallingly irresponsible man whose hands have ever grasped power.  You are maddened with egotism until you are a more malignant pestilence than famine or flame.  Now you have asked my opinion and in part you have it.”

For an instant Mary Burton thought her brother would spring upon her lover in a tigerish abandon of fury, and she knew from the fighting flame in the other’s eyes that he would be met half-way.  Paul had dropped into a chair, where he sat as one stunned.

Burton returned the gaze which had never dropped from its inflexible directness; and his own voice was changed to a key of satirical quiet.