'I know; but it's your own fault. You haven't been fair with me.
There's a complication in this business that you've never talked
about. I've never pressed you because I thought you would confide in
me. You--'

'I know I haven't,' said Davies.

'Well, you see the result. Our hand was forced. To have said nothing
about Dollmann was folly--to have said he tried to wreck you was
equal folly. The story we agreed on was the best and safest, and you
told it splendidly. But for two reasons I had to harp on the
daughter--one because your manner when they were mentioned was so
confused as to imperil our whole position. Two, because your story,
though the safest, was, at the best, suspicious. Even on your own
showing Dollmann treated you badly--discourteously, say: though you
pretended not to have seen it. You want a motive to neutralize that,
and induce you to revisit him in a friendly way. I supplied it, or
rather I only encouraged von Brüning to supply it.'

'Why revisit him, after all?' said Davies.

'Oh, come--'

'But don't you see what a hideous fix you've put me in? How caddish I
feel about it?'

I did see, and I felt a cad myself, as his full distress came home to
me. But I felt, too, that, whosesoever the fault, we had drifted into
a ridiculous situation, and were like characters in one of those