“I don’t want you to believe that,” she answered. “I haven’t come to the message yet. I have earned a right to speak to you first, on my own account.”
“In twelve minutes I must be on the stage,” I said.
“The stage!” she echoed. “You can go on acting just the same, though he is in prison—for you!”
“I must go on acting. If I didn’t, I should do him more harm than good.”
“I won’t keep you beyond your time. But I beg that you will do him good. If you care for him at all, you must want to save him.”
“If I care for him?” I repeated, in surprise. “You think—oh, but I understand now. You are the girl he spoke of.”
She blushed deeply, and then grew pale.
“I did not think he would speak of me,” she said. “I wish he hadn’t. But, if you know everything, the little there is to know, you must see that you have nothing to fear from any rivalry of mine, Mademoiselle de Renzie.”
“Why,” I exclaimed, “you speak as if you thought Ivor Dundas my lover.”
“I don’t know what you are to each other,” she faltered, all her coolness deserting her. “That isn’t my affair—”