"Well," she said again defiantly, "I made them up."
"In God's name, Florrie, what for?"
"I wanted to."
"To pad out your book?"
"To make a nice book, the kind of one I wanted. I'll tell you what, Billy,"—she bowled caution into the farthest distance,—"I'm going to make a clean breast of it. Now you won't peach?"
He shook his head.
"Go on," he bade her.
She lifted her head, sat straighter in her chair, and spoke with firmness:—
"Now, Billy, if I'm going to talk to you at all, you must know precisely where I stand. Maybe you do, but I don't believe it. You see, all these years I've been writing what I called novels, and they've paid me a little, and I've got up a sort of local fame. I'm as poor—well, I can't tell you how poor. Only I live here in the summer with Electra in her house—"
"It's the old Fulton house."