“Why?”

The other’s lips parted for a quick retort; then in a surprising way the retort seemed to fail him.  “Oh, because the thing isn’t feasible, isn’t practicable from any point of view.”

Chilcote stepped closer.  “Why?” he insisted.

“Because it couldn’t work, man!  Couldn’t hold for a dozen hours.”

Chilcote put out his hand and touched his arm.  “But why?” he urged.  “Why?  Give me one unanswerable reason.”

Loder shook off the hand and laughed, but below his laugh lay a suggestion of the other’s excitement.  Again the scene stirred him against his sounder judgment; though his reply, when it came, was firm enough.

“As for reasons—­” he said.  “There are a hundred, if I had time to name them.  Take it, for the sake of supposition, that I were to accept your offer.  I should take my place in your house at—­let us say at dinnertime.  Your man gets me into your evening-clothes, and there, at the very start, you have the first suspicion set up.  He has probably known you for years—­known you until every turn of your appearance, voice, and manner is far more familiar to him than it is to you.  There are no eyes like a servant’s.”

“I have thought of that.  My servant and my secretary can both be changed.  I will do the thing thoroughly.”

Loder glanced at him in surprise.  The madness had more method than he had believed.  Then, as he still looked, a fresh idea struck him, and he laughed.

“You have entirely forgotten one thing,” he said.  “You can hardly dismiss your wife.”

“My wife doesn’t count.”

Again Loder laughed.  “I’m afraid I scarcely agree.  The complications would be slightly—­slightly—­” He paused.

Chilcote’s latent irritability broke out suddenly.  “Look here,” he said, “this isn’t a chaffing matter, It may be moonshine to you, but it’s reality to me.”

Again Loder took his face between his hands.

“Don’t ridicule the idea.  I’m in dead earnest.”

Loder said nothing.

“Think—­think it over before you refuse.”

For a moment Loder remained motionless; then h rose suddenly, pushing back his chair.

“Tush, man!  You don’t know what you say.  The fact of your being married bars it.  Can’t you see that?”

Again Chilcote caught his arm.

“You misunderstand,” he said.  “You mistake the position.  I tell you my wife and I are nothing to each other.  She goes her way; I go mine.  We have our own friends, our own rooms.  Marriage, actual marriage, doesn’t enter the question.  We meet occasionally at meals, and at other people’s houses; sometimes we go out together for the sake of appearances; beyond that, nothing.  If you take up my life, nobody in it will trouble you less than Eve—­I can promise that.”  He laughed unsteadily.

Loder’s face remained unmoved.

“Even granting that,” he said, “the thing is still impossible.”