“As I told Miss Walters, the trouble with her, and I am afraid with you, too, Hollinger, is that you can’t comprehend an honest man. I happen to be a mere honest man.” “Pray, don’t believe I doubted it.” “Just plain, old-fashioned, vulgar honest,” Brainard continued irascibly. “Neither of you seem to understand that simple fact. You proceed on two false assumptions,—first that I am a crook and second that I am a coward—I might add a third, that I am a fool. So long as these false assumptions remain embedded in your mind, we simply can’t do business together.” He walked suggestively towards the door. Hollinger also rose, a little wearily, a bored look on his face, and chucked his cigar into the fireplace. “I am sorry,” he said gently, “that we have succeeded in straining your sense of humor. . . . The trouble with you virtuous people is that you bristle so easily at the least touch. I should think that Virtue would be more self-satisfying to its practitioners. Now I don’t bristle because you assume that I am a petty blackmailer and am trying to get money for Miss Walters in order to share with her. That’s what you think—confess it!” “It looks that way,” Brainard said. “If it does, it doesn’t worry me in the least. I don’t waste our time trying to prove to you that I am Honest and Disinterested, that I came here to-night really out of friendly interest in you—to try with the aid of my equable temperament and clear intelligence to avoid the mistakes that are likely to occur when excessive desire meets excessive virtue. But I have failed. You two will have to make up your accounts alone—or with the vulgar assistance of the courts. Good luck to you. And good night!” He extended one hand to Brainard and the other to Farson. “I will give myself the pleasure of setting you down at your hotel,” he said to the actress, who was slowly and somewhat regretfully buttoning her fur coat. When Farson and the actress had left the room, Brainard detained Hollinger and said contritely: “I’m afraid I did suspect you of collusion with Miss Walters—I’m sorry, for I have always liked you.” “It’s very natural. You yourself must know how hard it is in this world to be really disinterested without incurring unjust suspicions. However, that’s nothing!” “The trouble is I can’t understand you—never did!” “I’m afraid I can’t return the compliment. I flatter myself that I understand you thoroughly.” “Do you remember that first time I met you—on the train, the Overland Limited, going to California? You were in your compartment reading _Paradise Lost_ with the help of a dictionary.” The fight-trust man blushed slightly, probably at the mention of the dictionary. “You mean the occasion when that active young seeker for notoriety, the special district attorney of San Francisco, was trying to put me in state’s prison?” “You were under bonds then, seventy-five thousand dollars of bonds. I remember how awed I was at the size of your bonds!”