"With his, Smith, and most injuriously. He's here to tempt her to forget she's not--" He faltered.
"Free?" said I, and he nodded with tragic solemnity.
He shook his head bitterly. "Oh, well, then, of course I know. How am I to help you to help him; help him to do what?"
"O--oh! to tear himself away from her, Smith. I want you to appeal to him. He's taken a great shine to you. You can appeal to his feeling for romance--poetry--whatever he calls his hell-fired--I mean his unfortunate impiety. You know how, and I don't. And there you reach the foundations of his character, as far as it's got any; there's his conscience if it's anywhere!"
I find myself giving but a faint impression of the spirit in which Gholson spoke; it went away beyond a mere backbiting mood and became a temper so vindictive and so venomously purposeful that I was startled; his condition seemed so fearfully like that of the old paralytic when he whined "That's not our way."
"Smith," my companion went on, "we ought to protect Ned Ferry from himself!" The words came through his clenched teeth. "And even more we ought to protect her. Who's to do it if we don't? Smith, I believe Providence has been a-preparing you to do this, all through these last three nights and days!"
He looked at me for an answer until I became frightened. Was my late folly known to this crawling maligner after all? A sweet-scented preparation I've had, thought I, but aloud I said only, "If Ned Ferry clears out, I suppose we must clear out, too."
"Why, eh,--I--I don't know that my movements need have anything to do with his. Yours, of course,--"
"I know," he said, "that comes hard; you'll have to tear _yourself_ away--"
He stared at me and hushed. A panic was surging through me; must I be brought to book by such as he? "Mr. Gholson," I cried, all scorn without, all terror within; "Mr. Gholson, I--Mr. Gholson, sir!--" and set my jaws and heaved for breath.
"Why, Smith,--" He extended a soothing hand.
"No explanation, sir, if you please! I can get away from here without tearing myself, which is more than you can boast. Any fool can see why _you_ are here. Stop, I take that back, sir! I don't play tit-for-tat with my tongue."
Gholson turned red on the brow and ashen about the lips. "I don't call that tit-for-tat, Mr. Smith. I remind you of an innocent attachment for a young girl; you accuse me of harboring a guilty passion for--" All at once he ceased with open lips, and then said as he drew a long breath of relief, "Smith, I beg your pardon! We've each misunderstood the other; I see, now, who you meant; you meant Miss Estelle Harper!"