"You won't when I tell you."
In the quiet, unaccentuated manner in which she had given her own share in the action she gave Diane's. Shading her eyes with the hand-screen, she was able to watch his play of feature, and note how the first forced smile of bravado faded into an expression of crestfallen gravity.
"You see," she concluded, "they were frantic at Dorothea's failure to appear. When you arrived they naturally thought it was she; and if Derek Pruyn hadn't lost his head when he saw you, he wouldn't have tried to thrust her out of sight as though she were caught in a crime. It was so like a man to do it; a woman would have had a dozen ways of disarming your suspicion, while he did the very thing to arouse it. I don't blame you for thinking what you did—not in the least. I don't even blame you for telling it, since it would seem to bear out—what you said before. I should only blame you—"
"Yes, Mademoiselle? You would only blame me—?"
"I should only blame you if—now that you know the truth—you didn't correct the impression you have given."
"Are you going to begin on that again?" he asked, in a tone of disappointment.
"I'm not beginning again, because I've never ceased. If I say anything new on the subject, it is this—that it's time the final word was spoken."
"I agree with you there; it is time for that word; but you must speak it."
There was a ring of energy in his voice which caused her to turn from her contemplation of the fire and look at him. When she did he had taken on a new air of resolution.
"I think it's time we came to a definite understanding," he went on, "and that you should see how the matter looks from my point of view. You speak of doing right, Mademoiselle, as if it were an easy thing. You don't realize that, for me, it would have to be the last act but one in life."