"Not really——" He almost gasped, as he would have repeated her words. It had not occurred to him, even while he read the cutting, that Lesley Dearmer could possibly think him a fraud. "What—you—you—don't believe in me?" he stammered. "You?"
Apparently she was untouched by the reproach, the actual consternation in his voice.
"Why should I believe, more than anyone else?" she asked with a little dainty, sidewise turn of her head. "I was only a ship acquaintance, you know—like the others."
"Like the others who threw me over," he said.
"Yes, like the others. There was no difference—was there?" she challenged him.
But Loveland was in no mood to take up the gauntlet, if it were a gauntlet that she threw down.
"I suppose not," he answered from the depths.
"You valued almost all your other acquaintances on board more than you did me," the girl went on. "You were quite frank about that. By your own admission, you were a bit of an adventurer, coming over to my country to see what you could devour. I used to hate that in you—all the more because I thought you a titled adventurer. There was less excuse for a well brought up man, with every advantage of birth and education, than for——"
"Say it, Miss Dearmer. Say what you really think of me."
"I don't say I do think it. I say only, why should I believe in you, when other people don't?"