"Oh, my boy, my boy!" pleaded the man of the world, sickly. "You don't realize it, but I can tell you from appearances--some of those women you stared at are here with their _husbands_!"
"So was _your_ wife when she came here," said the boy.
Mr. Montagu fell back in his chair with a gasp. As swiftly as it had leapt into his mind, the frightful implication of the words leapt out again in his amazement at the boy's knowledge of the incident.
But the waiter stepped between them with the order, and in obvious terror now instead of simple aversion, clattered it down with trembling hands.
"Go away! Go away!" commanded Mr. Montagu angrily. "_I'll_ arrange it! Go!" And the waiter escaped.
"How did you know?" he asked; but without waiting for a reply he poured out the boy's wine and his own, and took a long hasty draft.
"Oh!" cried the boy piteously. "Don't ask me! I shouldn't have said it! I knew I'd let it out if you came here with me! I'll be telling you everything in a minute, and you'll go stark mad when you know!"
The inference rushed again upon Henry Montagu, a worse vague horror than any yet, and he almost sprang from his chair.
"Are you going to tell me my wife was unfaithful to me, and with--with--"
"Fool! Fool!" cried the boy. "I wish to God she _had_ been unfaithful to you! I tried to make her, I can tell you that! Then there'd have been at least half a chance for _me_! But now that she's dead, there's no chance for either of us, even you! Unless--O God!--unless you'll control yourself and think! I beg you again, I beg of you, _think_ again! Go away from here, go now, without asking me anything more, and there's just a shade of a chance for you! I told you there was none if you left the house, but there may be, there may be! Go home, and forget this, and be satisfied your wife loved you, for she did. She kept herself for you _at my expense_! Go now, and they'll let you go. But if you stay here and talk to me, you'll leave this place in manacles! I'm here, _among those women_, and I'm with you! My secret will come out and drag you down, as I planned it should before I began to like you! And you like me, too--I feel it. For _my_ sake, then, for God's sake and for your sake, _won't you go_?"