“I do not know.”
“But you can guess.”
Topham shook his head. “No,” he answered, gently. “I may not guess even if I could. You know that, countess. No one knows it better than you.”
Some great emotion seemed to sweep through the woman’s frame. She shivered, though the night was not cold; her lips trembled; her eyes stared blankly. Then, quick as it had come, the stress vanished and her features shaped themselves into a mocking smile.
“So,” she said, bitingly. “So all those pretty things you said to me in Berlin and in Tokio were false. You amused yourself, perhaps?”
Topham shook his head. “They were true,” he affirmed. “They are still true. You know it.”
His directness was disconcerting. An appeal to one against one’s self usually is. But the scorn in the woman’s eyes did not lessen.
“Yet you refuse?”
“Yes! I refuse.” A flash of passion trembled in Topham’s tones. “God!” he cried. “If I did not have to refuse! If I did not have to refuse!”
Coolly the countess studied him. His agitation was welcome. If it should increase anything was possible. But one cannot argue with a marble statue. For herself the time of self-betrayal was past. Brain had usurped the rule of heart, and would maintain itself till the end.