“And so,” she continued, a little uneasy, “I came to you immediately.”
I continued to listen, as if I were waiting for her to finish and depart.
“If you want, I'll go to Anita.” Natural feminine tact would have saved her from this rawness; but, convinced that she was a “great lady” by the flattery of servants and shopkeepers and sensational newspapers and social climbers, she had discarded tact as worthy only of the lowly and of the aspiring before they “arrive.”
“You are too kind,” said I. “Mrs. Blacklock and I feel competent to take care of our own affairs.”
“Please, Mr. Blacklock,” she said, realizing that she had blundered, “don't take my directness the wrong way. Life is too short for pose and pretense about the few things that really matter. Why shouldn't we be frank with each other?”
“I trust you will excuse me,” said I, moving toward the door—I had not seated myself when she did. “I think I have made it clear that we have nothing to discuss.”
“You have the reputation of being generous and too big for hatred. That is why I have come to you,” said she, her expression confirming my suspicion of the real and only reason for her visit. “Mowbray and I are completely reconciled—completely, you understand. And I want you to be generous, and not keep on with this attack. I am involved even more than he. He has used up his fortune in defending mine. Now, you are simply trying to ruin me—not him, but me. The president is a friend of Mowbray's, and he'll call off this horrid investigation, and everything'll be all right, if you'll only stop.”
“Who sent you here?” I asked.
“I came of my own accord,” she protested. Then, realizing from the sound of her voice that she could not have convinced me with a tone so unconvincing, she hedged with: “It was my own suggestion, really it was.”
“Your husband permitted you to come—and to me?”