sumed, "to offer you any
sympathy on the score of that misfortune; believe me, however, that my
knowledge--my full knowledge--of the circumstances can incline me to
nothing but a deep regret. But facts are facts, however hardly they may
bear on individuals." He paused. "I have asserted what I know. You are
entitled to ask me for proofs, Mr Tristram."

Harry was silent a moment, thinking very hard. Many modes of defence
came into his busy brain and were rejected. Should he be tempestuous?
No. Should he be amazed? Again no. Even on his own theory of the story,
Duplay's assertion hardly entitled him to be amazed.

"As regards my part in this matter," he said at last, "I have only this
to say. The circumstances of my birth--with which I am, as you rightly
suppose, quite familiar--were such as to render the sort of notion you
have got hold of plausible enough. I don't want what you call
proofs--though you'll want them badly if you mean to pursue your present
line. I have my own proofs--perfectly in order, perfectly satisfactory.
That's all I have to say about my part of the matter. About your part in
it I can, I think, be almost equally brief. Are you merely Mr Iver's
friend, or are you also, as you put it, paying attentions to Miss Iver?"

"That, sir, has nothing to do with it."

Harry Tristram looked up at him. For the first time he broke into a
smile as he studied Duplay's face. "I shouldn't in the least wonder," he
said almost chaffingly, "if you believed that to be true. You get hold
of a cock-and-bull story about my being illegitimate (Oh, I've no
objection to plainness either in its proper place!), you come to me and
tell me almost in so many words that if I don't give up the lady you'll
go to her father and show him your precious proofs. Everybody knows that
you're after Miss Iver yourself, and yet you say that it has nothing to
do with it! That's the sort of thing a man may manage to believe about
himself; it's not the sort of thing that other people believe about him,
Major Duplay." He rose slowly to his feet and the men stood face to face
on the edge of the Pool. The rain fell more heavily: Duplay turned up
his collar, Harry took no notice of the downpour.

"I'm perfectly satisfied as to the honesty of my own motives," said
Duplay.

"That's not true, and you know it. You may try to shut your eyes, but
you can't succeed."

Duplay was shaken. His enemy put into words what his own conscience had
said to him.