Whitford summoned Bromfield to his office where the personal equation would be less pronounced.  He put to him plainly the charge made by Jerry and demanded an answer.

The younger man was between the devil and the deep sea.  He would have lied cheerfully if that would have availed.  But a denial of the truth of Durand’s allegations would be a challenge for him to prove his story.  He would take it to the papers and spread it broadcast.  From that hour Clarendon Bromfield would be an outcast in the city.  Society would repudiate him.  His clubs would cast him out.  All the prestige that he had built up by a lifetime of effort would be swept away.

No lie could save him.  The only thing he could do was to sugarcoat the truth.  He set about making out a case for himself as skillfully as he could.

“I’m a man of the world, Mr. Whitford,” he explained.  “When I meet an ugly fact I look it in the face.  This man Lindsay was making a great impression on you and Bee.  Neither of you seemed able quite to realize his—­his deficiencies, let us say.  I felt myself at a disadvantage with him because he’s such a remarkably virile young man and he constantly reminded you both of the West you love.  It seemed fair to all of us to try him out—­to find out whether at bottom he was a decent fellow or not.  So I laid a little trap to find out.”

Bromfield was sailing easily into his version of the affair.  It was the suavest interpretation of his conduct that he had been able to prepare, one that put him in the role of a fair-minded man looking to the best interests of all.

“Not the way Durand tells it,” answered the miner bluntly.  “He says you paid him a thousand dollars to arrange a trap to catch Lindsay.”

“Either he misunderstood me or he’s distorting the facts,” claimed the clubman with an assumption of boldness.

“That ought to be easy to prove.  We’ll make an appointment with him for this afternoon and check up by the dictagraph.”

Bromfield laughed uneasily.  “Is that necessary, Mr. Whitford?  Surely my word is good.  I have the honor to tell you that I did nothing discreditable.”

“It would have been good with me a week ago,” replied the Coloradoan gravely.  “But since then—­well, you know what’s happened since then.  I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Clarendon, but I may as well say frankly that I can’t accept your account without checking up on it.  That, however, isn’t quite the point.  Durand has served notice that unless we call off the prosecution of him he’s going to ruin you.  Are you satisfied to have us tell him he can go to the devil?”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”  Bromfield felt for his words carefully.  “Maybe in cold type what I said might be misunderstood.  I wouldn’t like to push the fellow too far.”

Whitford leaned back in his swivel chair and looked steadily at the man to whom his daughter was engaged.  “I’m going to the bottom of this, Bromfield.  That fellow Durand ought to go to the penitentiary.  We’re gathering the evidence to send him there.  Now he tells me he’ll drag you down to ruin with him it he goes.  Come clean.  Can he do it?”