His face was grave, and he did not respond to her mood as he stood there, watching her.
"Well," she said, after a silence, during which his face did not change expression; "can't you say something complimentary?" She lifted her eyes challengingly, as though to invite his inspection.
He saw that the tragedy had not affected her as it would have affected some women—his mother and Ruth Hamlin, for example—though he veiled the reproof in his eyes with a smile. The vanity she exhibited, her self-interest, egotism disgusted him.
"You've found the mirror," he said. "Well, you look pretty well slicked up. What happened last night seems to have affected you very little."
"Why should it?" she demanded, defiantly. "I don't intend to brood over two men that I did not know—two men who attempted to commit murder! Of course, it was an awful shock, and all that, but I am not going into hysterics over it. Besides, I didn't kill them."
Lawler abruptly turned away from her and walked to the fireplace. His face was pale and his eyes were glowing with contempt. She followed him as far as the table, her lips in a pout—and stood there watching him, her gaze mocking, defiant.
He finally turned and looked at her, his lips set in straight lines.
"Yes, I killed them, Miss Wharton," he said, evenly. "Do you know why?"
"Because they seemed determined to kill you—because they attacked you, I suppose," she returned.
"You are wrong, Miss Wharton. There was nothing personal in that killing. Those men were carrying out a principle of the unscrupulous system you defended in our talk last night. If there had been no system those men would not have attempted to cut my fence, I would not have captured them, and they would not have attempted to kill me. Do you see what I meant last night when I said the system was evil?"