She laughed, this time without affectation. "You are really rather funny," she said. "Well now, what do you suggest? That I shall hold my tongue and go away? Back to America, for instance, and settle down there for good, perhaps under another name?"
He could hardly believe his ears. "You would do that?" he cried.
"I think perhaps I might be persuaded to. I am not unreasonable."
"If you did that," he broke out, his face aflame, "the blessing of the innocent would be yours to the end of your life. You would be their saviour; you——"
"I suppose I should," she interrupted dryly. "I should like that. But the trouble is, you see, that one can't live on the blessing of the innocent. It isn't sustaining enough. And I have very little to live on."
The light died slowly out of his face as he listened to her.
"You must help me," she said. "You are a rich man, and you can do it. You allowed money to be paid before, to hush up this scandal; you offered a very large sum of money to free yourself of a mere disagreeable feeling of indebtedness, and took some risk in doing it too—I give you that much justice. I am glad Lord Sedbergh refused that money. Now you can lend it to me—I will pay you back some day—and a few thousands more. Let me have ten thousand pounds, Mr. Clinton. You can ease your conscience of the wrong you have done me, and save your innocents at the same time—yourself, who are not innocent, into the bargain."
Perhaps she had mistaken the motives which had led him to refuse to pay money to Gotch, and really thought that he had done it only to save his own skin, knowing that it would be paid elsewhere; in which case nothing in this proposal would shock him. Or perhaps she relied overmuch on having frightened him into acquiescence with any proposal. Otherwise, with all her powers of finesse, she would hardly have plumped out her demand in this careless fashion.
She had restored him in some degree to himself. "What!" he cried, his brows terrifically together. "After all you have said, you now want me to pay blackmail to you. It's an impudent proposal; and I refuse it."
She was quick to see her error. If he wanted his susceptibilities soothed, she was quite ready to do that.