"I don't want to know how it began," Davenant said, hastily. "I'm
satisfied with knowing the situation as it is."

"But I want to tell you. In proportion as I'm open with you I shall
expect you to be frank with me."

"I don't promise to be frank with you."

"Anyhow, I mean to set you the example."

He went on to speak rapidly, feverishly, with that half-hysterical
impulse toward confession from the signs of which Davenant had shrunk on
the previous evening. As Guion himself had forewarned, there was nothing
new or unusual in the tale. The situations were entirely the
conventional ones in the drama of this kind of unfaithfulness. The only
element to make it appealing, an element forcibly present to Davenant's
protective instincts, was the contrast between what Guion had been and
what he was to-day.

"And so," Guion concluded, "I don't see how I could accept this money
from you. Any honorable man--that is," he corrected, in some confusion,
"any _sane_ man--would tell you as much."

"I've already considered what the sane man and the honorable man would
tell me. I guess I can let them stick to their opinion so long as I have
my own."

"And what _is_ your opinion? Do you mind telling me? You understand that
what you're proposing is immoral, don't you?"