"I know you have.... I realized it that night at the café when you had the courage of your bitterness and insulted me. I was furious, of course! I wanted to strike back, to kick and scream and claw the air. And as a matter of fact, I did ... after we ... Flint and I ... got home. He let me rave without saying a word. Oh, he's a clever brute in his way, that man! And when I'd had it all out he got up and he said: 'Take a look at yourself in the glass. If that doesn't cure you, nothing will.' And he walked deliberately out.... I went over to the mirror after he had gone, and I took a look, a long, hard look.... Next night he came and pounded on my door—he was drunk. 'I did what you told me last night,' I called to him. 'Go away! I'm cured!' But of course I wasn't!... I've looked in the glass every day since.... I don't know just what possessed me to go and offer my services to Doctor Danilo. A flash of the old distemper, I fancy. I wanted to create a stir. I smiled when he disposed of you with so much confidence. I thought: 'Wait until my lady hears; then there will be some fun!... This will be the first difference, the first quarrel,' I was mean enough to imagine.... Then, your note came.... My dear Claire, for once in my life I was without a weapon.... Why didn't you strike back and give me a chance to fight?"
"Well, to be frank, I wanted to ... at first. But I was afraid."
"Of what ... of me?"
"Oh, not that! But Danilo ... he.... You see, he is a foreigner. He has other ideas about women and their place in the scheme of things. It isn't exactly a feeling that he's superior, but marriage to him is a partnership ... a partnership with a senior member. And senior members—well, they don't relish having their authority questioned. I'm explaining it very clumsily. But you understand I...."
"Afraid, Claire?... So soon? You must be very much in love to ... to...."
Claire drew a deep breath. "And I've a favor to ask of you.... I hope you won't say anything to Danilo about.... The truth of the matter is, I have never mentioned Ned Stillman's name to him."
Well, she had said it and she stood staring, wondering at the look of dismay that seemed to have fastened itself in an arrested flight upon Mrs. Condor's face.
"You mean that ... that Danilo knows nothing—absolutely nothing? I thought he was a friend of Ned's? Why, it isn't possible that...."
"He knows nothing," Claire repeated, desperately. "I mean to tell him, of course, but just now...."
Lily Condor tapped her lips with an uneasy finger. "You should have warned me sooner, Claire.... I said something yesterday. It was a trifle, but I remember now how he stared."