“Phillips!” he said, “I’m delighted to see you.”

Phillips ignored the hand and stood stockstill until the door had closed behind Nash. Then he spoke.

“You will be less delighted when you hear my business,” he said.

“Why—what on earth’s the matter with you?”

“I can scarcely trust myself to speak to you.”

“What the devil do you mean?”

“Precisely what I say. I’ve discovered you are a blackguard and I’ve come to tell you so.”

O’Callaghan stared at him in silence.

“Apparently you are serious,” he said at last. “May I ask if you intend merely to call me names and then walk out? Or am I to be given an explanation?”

“I’ll give you your explanation. In two words. Jane Harden.”

There was a long silence. The two men stared at each other. At last O’Callaghan turned away. A kind of mulish huffiness in his expression made him look ridiculous and unlikeable.

“What about Jane Harden?” he said at last.

“Only this. She’s a nurse at my hospital. For a very long time her happiness has been an important thing for me. I have asked her to marry me. She has refused, over and over again. To-day she told me why. It seems you made capital out of a friendship with her father and out of her present poverty. You played the ‘old family friend’ combined with the distinguished philanderer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t lie, O’Callaghan!”

“Look here—”

“I know the facts.”

“What sort of tale have you listened to!”

“One that brought me here to-night angrier than I ever remember myself before. I know the precise history of your—your friendship with her. You amused yourself, evidently. I dislike overstatement but I believe it would be no overstatement if I said, as I do say, that you’ve ruined Jane’s life for her.”

“Damn’ sentimental twaddle!” said O’Callaghan breathlessly. “She’s a modern young woman and she knows how to enjoy herself.”

“That’s a complete misrepresentation.” Phillips had turned exceedingly white, but he spoke evenly. “If, by the phrase ‘a modern young woman,’ you mean a ‘loose woman’ you must know yourself it’s a lie. This is the only episode of the sort in her life. She loved you and you let her suppose she was loved in return.”

“Nothing of the sort. She gave me no reason to suppose she attached more importance to the thing than I did myself. You say she’s in love with me. If it’s true I’m sorry. I don’t think it’s true. What does she want? It’s not—” O’Callaghan stopped short and looked frightened. “It’s not that she’s going to have a child?”

“Oh, no. She has no actual claim on you. No legal claim. Evidently you don’t recognize moral obligations.”

“I’ve sent her £300. What more will she want?”