'Two?' he interrupted quickly.
'Yes, one you know—to Tommy.' He nodded. 'The other to her—I promised to tell no one she was ruined. But that's not much. It seems to me as if all that she's gone through, all she's lost, all she's suffered—yes, if you like, all the wrong things she's done—had somehow all been for you. She was the only woman who could have made the change in you. Nobody else could have driven out the idol, Airey. You talk of me. You've known me for years. Did I ever drive it out? No, she had to do it. And before she could, she had to be ruined, she had to be in the dust—perhaps she had to be cruel or unjust to others. I can't work out the philosophy of it, but that's how it's happened.' She paused, only to break out vehemently again: 'You spoil it with your talk of me; you spoil it with the necklace!' With a sudden movement she raised her hands, unclasped the pearls from about her neck, and threw them on the table. 'Everything for her, Airey,' she begged, 'everything for her!'
His eyes followed the pearls, and he smiled. 'But what about all the things for me?'
'Aren't they for her too? Aren't you for her? Wouldn't you go to her as fine as you could?'
'What a woman—what a very woman you are!' he chuckled softly.
'No, that's all right,' she insisted eagerly. 'Would she be happy if you lavished things on her and were still wretched if you had anything for yourself?' She was full of her subject; she sprang up and faced him. 'Not this time to the poor, because they can't repay! Not this time to the fire, because it would give you no profit! You must love this—it's a great investment!'
He sat down in the chair she had left empty and played with the pearls that lay on the table.
'Yes, you're right,' he said at last. 'She was the beginning of it. It was she who—but shall I tell that to her?'
'Yes, tell it to her, to her only,' urged Peggy Ryle.
'Give me your hands, Peggy. I want to tell something to you.'