"Is your friendship purchasable?" he inquired, making the rush without
further preamble.
"My wife was, I was led to believe," came the calm retort.
Grant threw scruples to the wind now. Adelaide Mulhuish was being
defamed, not by him, but by her husband.
"We are at cross purposes," he said, weighing each word. "Your wife, who
knew your character fairly well, I am convinced, thought that you were
open to receive a cash consideration for your connivance in a divorce."
"She had told me plainly that she would never live with me again. I was
too fair-minded a man to place obstacles in the way when she wished to
regain her freedom."
"So it was true, then. What was the price? One thousand--two? I am not a
millionaire."
"Nor am I. As a mere matter of pounds, shillings, and pence, it was a
serious matter for me when my wife's earnings ceased to come into the
common stock."
"My first, if rather vague, estimate of you was the correct one. You are
a good bit of a scoundrel, and, if I guess rightly, a would-be
blackmailer."
"You are talking at random, Mr. Grant. The levying of blackmail connotes
that the person bled desires that some discreditable, or dangerous, fact
should be concealed.
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