“I should not have come to you,” she said, “in a very difficult situation, if I had believed your character really summed up in that word. Perhaps I can do you more justice than you do yourself, Felix.”
“That I can’t tell, Marion, until I know what it is you ask of me.”
“Courage, Felix Dane,” she answered, looking me straight in the face; “and self-restraint.”
A short silence ensued. Then, “I am waiting,” I said.
She took yet a quick turn or two, and came back as before.
“You know something of my position here,” she said, “and of its responsibilities? Well, those have suddenly assumed a very grave and menacing aspect. There have been discoveries and revelations of late, more than enough.”
I saw that, for all her self-repression, she was distressed and agitated, and the man in me, no less, perhaps, than the curiosity, was moved.
“Well, take my better qualities for granted,” I said.
She squeezed her lips with her hand, still staring at me; then broke out:—
“I will—I must. I have a claim upon them, after all, and a right to urge it. Felix, if you will swear to keep my confidence——”