"What things?"
"We have found out, my pretty sir, that you lived for months last year by gambling. I suppose you will deny it?"
"No," answered Kittredge in a low tone, "it's true."
"Ah! We found out also that the money you made by gambling you spent with a brazen creature who——"
"Stop!" interrupted the American, and turning to the girl he said: "Alice, I didn't mean to go into these details, I didn't see the need of it, but——"
"I don't want to know the details," she interrupted. "I know you, Lloyd, that is enough."
She looked him in the eyes trustingly and he blinked a little.
"Plucky!" he murmured. "They're trying to queer me and maybe they will, but I'm not going to lie about it. Listen. I came to Paris a year ago on account of a certain person. I thought I loved her and—I made a fool of myself. I gave up a good position in New York and—after I had been here a while I went broke. So I gambled. It's pretty bad—I don't defend myself, only there's one thing I want you to know. This person was not a low woman, she was a lady."
"Huh!" grunted Mother Bonneton. "A lady! The kind of a lady who dines alone with gay young gentlemen in private rooms! Aha, we have the facts!"
The young man's eyes kindled. "No matter where she dined, I say she was a lady, and the proof of it is I—I wanted her to get a divorce and—and marry me."