“Yes,” said Grace, a little impatiently. “Mr. Leyton thought he ought to write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects with Mr. Rushbrook, and”—
“You came here to inquire?” said the young man, sharply.
“I came here to stop any inquiry,” said Grace, indignantly. “I came here to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me of Mr. Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!”
“With what I had confided to you? You dared say that?”
Grace stopped, and instantly faced him. But any indignation she might have felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the revulsion and horror that overtook her with the sudden revelation she saw in his white and frightened face. Leyton's strange inquiry, Rushbrook's cold composure and scornful acceptance of her own credulousness, came to her in a flash of shameful intelligence. Somers had lied! The insufferable meanness of it! A lie, whose very uselessness and ignobility had defeated its purpose—a lie that implied the basest suspicion of her own independence and truthfulness—such a lie now stood out as plainly before her as his guilty face.
“Forgive my speaking so rudely,” he said with a forced smile and attempt to recover his self-control, “but you have ruined me unless you deny that I told you anything. It was a joke—an extravagance that I had forgotten; at least, it was a confidence between you and me that you have foolishly violated. Say that you misunderstood me—that it was a fancy of your own. Say anything—he trusts you—he'll believe anything you say.”
“He HAS believed me,” said Grace, almost fiercely, turning upon him with the paper that Rushbrook had given her in her outstretched hand. “Read that!”
He read it. Had he blushed, had he stammered, had he even kept up his former frantic and pitiable attitude, she might at that supreme moment have forgiven him. But to her astonishment his face changed, his handsome brow cleared, his careless, happy smile returned, his graceful confidence came back—he stood before her the elegant, courtly, and accomplished gentleman she had known. He returned her the paper, and advancing with extended hand, said triumphantly:—
“Superb! Splendid! No one but a woman could think of that! And only one woman achieve it. You have tricked the great Rushbrook. You are indeed worthy of being a financier's wife!”
“No,” she said passionately, tearing up the paper and throwing it at his feet; “not as YOU understand it—and never YOURS! You have debased and polluted everything connected with it, as you would have debased and polluted ME. Out of my presence that you are insulting—out of the room of the man whose magnanimity you cannot understand!”