"Five years," she answered. "It's not a pretty story, is it? How the duchess enjoys telling it! What she knows and what she thinks. And she's my great-aunt. Fancy what fun it has afforded the rest of the world!"
"That is unworthy of you," Carleigh rebuked under his breath—"to rail about the horror that has blighted your life. I can't laugh over horrors. They turn me cold in the night."
"Ah, but I've grown used to mine," she returned lightly. "And besides, it wasn't so bad as what followed—as the realizing that I could never be clean again. I wonder if all those who've sinned as I have sinned are trying to fill an empty life as I've been trying!"
He moved to a seat, sank down and clutched his head between his hands. "But love wasn't killed in you—you find pleasure in men. It has been in me."
She whirled in her seat so suddenly that he started.
"Good Heavens!" she cried, "you don't fancy that I get any real joy out of flirting, do you? Why, it's only to pass the time. I never forget for one second. I—I couldn't."
There was another silence—briefer, this time—and then Carleigh rose, a bit heavily.
"You're horribly human, you know," he said. "I don't know what to say or what to do. I know only that I long more than ever for you. You—you couldn't care for me again, I suppose?"
She began to laugh. "Oh, you very manlike man!" she cried. "As if I didn't know that was what you came for. No; I couldn't ever care for you. No; not possibly."
There was a tap on the door and the housemaid entered with a card for Nina, who knew whose name it bore before she glanced at it.