Betton held back his answer, with a brooding face.  “Because I wrote ’Hester Macklin’s’—­to myself!”

Vyse sat stock-still, without the least outcry of wonder.  “Well—?” he finally said, in a low tone.

“And because you found me out (you see, you can’t even feign surprise!)—­because you saw through it at a glance, knew at once that the letters were faked.  And when you’d foolishly put me on my guard by pointing out to me that they were a clumsy forgery, and had then suddenly guessed that I was the forger, you drew the natural inference that I had to have popular approval, or at least had to make you think I had it.  You saw that, to me, the worst thing about the failure of the book was having you know it was a failure.  And so you applied your superior—­your immeasurably superior—­abilities to carrying on the humbug, and deceiving me as I’d tried to deceive you.  And you did it so successfully that I don’t see why the devil you haven’t made your fortune writing novels!”

Vyse remained silent, his head slightly bent under the mounting tide of Betton’s denunciation.

“The way you differentiated your people—­characterised them—­avoided my stupid mistake of making the women’s letters too short and logical, of letting my different correspondents use the same expressions:  the amount of ingenuity and art you wasted on it!  I swear, Vyse, I’m sorry that damned post-office went back on you,” Betton went on, piling up the waves of his irony.

But at this height they suddenly paused, drew back on themselves, and began to recede before the spectacle of Vyse’s pale distress.  Something warm and emotional in Betton’s nature—­a lurking kindliness, perhaps, for any one who tried to soothe and smooth his writhing ego—­softened his eye as it rested on the drooping figure of his secretary.

“Look here, Vyse—­I’m not sorry—­not altogether sorry this has happened!” He moved slowly across the room, and laid a friendly palm on Vyse’s shoulder.  “In a queer illogical way it evens up things, as it were.  I did you a shabby turn once, years ago—­oh, out of sheer carelessness, of course—­about that novel of yours I promised to give to Apthorn.  If I had given it, it might not have made any difference—­I’m not sure it wasn’t too good for success—­but anyhow, I dare say you thought my personal influence might have helped you, might at least have got you a quicker hearing.  Perhaps you thought it was because the thing was so good that I kept it back, that I felt some nasty jealousy of your superiority.  I swear to you it wasn’t that—­I clean forgot it.  And one day when I came home it was gone:  you’d sent and taken it.  And I’ve always thought since you might have owed me a grudge—­and not unjustly; so this ... this business of the letters ... the sympathy you’ve shown ... for I suppose it is sympathy ... ?”

Vyse startled and checked him by a queer crackling laugh.