"You'll make that other affair straight and marry some day if you break this off while you can. But if you don't stop you'll damage yourself badly. Take my word."
"And she asked you to say this to me?" It was an awful blow to the young baronet's pride. He couldn't quite believe it.
"She did. And it's nothing new for me, either. I'm quite used to saying this sort of thing to friends of hers. It's an old story.
"They had her down to divert your mind and bring you to your senses. She's done it, and now she's through. She's bothered with you until she's tired. A man doesn't last her very long."
Sir Caryll's face turned quickly crimson purple. "I've bored her, you mean?" he questioned in a tone of scorching outrage.
"Well, yes, since you put it that way," answered Kneedrock. "Or, perhaps, she's getting too fond of you. We'll never know the truth. No one knows the truth about a single thing in connection with her."
He held up his left hand and showed a nasty scar near the wrist between thumb and forefinger.
"Nobody knows just how I happened to get that, for example, except her. Nobody knows about her husband's death. I know that I'm generally supposed to have shot him. But I didn't. I wouldn't shoot a husband—too risky business nowadays. Autres temps, autres moeurs."
"Good God!" cried Caryll Carleigh.
"I don't blame you," the honorable viscount said with a sympathetic emphasis that was most unusual for him. "I know how rough it is for you just after your other scrape. But women are made that way."