At this he began to walk the floor again. She watched him with lifted head and flaming eyes.
"I wonder," he said, stopping suddenly and regarding her with a touch of humor in his face, "I wonder if you think I don't care anything for you."
"Yes, you have led me to think so."
He laughed aloud. "Why, I couldn't care that," he snapped his fingers, "for any other woman. I couldn't love any woman but you. Don't you know it, Sweetheart?" He put his arm around her, drawing her head against his shoulder. "Come, say you forgive me."
But she drew away, freeing herself desperately with her two arms. His own fell. She moved back and the step was immeasurable space between them. "No," she said. "No. Do not ask it."
He took another turn across the floor, uncertainly, his hands seeking his pockets. "Tell me this," he said quietly, stopping before her. "Is there something else? Something more than—well—my neglect. Something I don't know about."
"How can I tell you?" She pressed her hands to her head and let them fall, meeting his look. "Your way of loving has never been my way. I could never make you understand how much I cared for you. You were everything to me, Philip; everything. I worshipped you. To have you indifferent, away, to lose you as I did, was to have nothing. But I still could teach Silas to respect you, to believe in you. No slight, no neglect of me could make me doubt you in—other ways. You were a man of honor among men; you had your place—until—last night."
His glance wavered while she spoke. He felt an unaccountable weakness, a sudden tightness at the throat, and he reached back to a chair behind him and sank down.
"Philip," she said, "how could you do it? How—could—you?" Tears rushed to her eyes; she brushed them impatiently away. "Think of it. To lend the Phantom, that clean, white yacht, to an opium smuggler; to make him your companion, friend; to be his willing tool. Oh, the shame of it! The shame of it! How could you?"
He dropped his face in his hands. He felt suddenly that a court of justice might be more merciful than this proud, sweet, unrelenting woman. Then he made an effort to pull himself together. "I see," he said, "you saw the revenue boat and you accepted Forrest's version. The captain of the cutter would have told you different. There is some suspicion hanging over Stratton, I admit, and those inspectors were looking for the Phantom, in fact they boarded her, merely because he happened to make the cruise with me over from Victoria. They of course found nothing."