"You're talking of things you, being a good woman, know nothing about."
"At any rate I know a mind that ought to be quarantined—when I smell it." And she made a wry face and started to leave the room. When she had got as far as the threshold, he cried, "Courtney!" and his tone told her that he had caught sight of the reverse view of her costume—the unimpeded display of slender dimpled shoulders and straight smooth back almost to the waist line. She pretended not to hear, went on to the sitting room. Yielding altogether now to the imp of the perverse, she displaced Helen at the piano and sang the maddest, most melting love songs she knew. Basil tried to keep to the far part of the room; but gradually the enchantment compelled. Forgetting Richard—though he had seen him glowering and fuming from the darkness of the veranda—he leaned upon the end of the grand piano. His eyes were down, but his burning face and his trembling fingers as he raised or lowered his cigarette proclaimed how the deep passionate notes of her voice were vibrating through him.
It was somewhat later than usual when she went upstairs. As she pressed the button just inside her bedroom door and the light came on—a soft pale violet light that seemed to permeate rather than to shine—she saw Richard in the window. His back was toward her and he was smoking so that the odor and the smoke would not come into the room. He threw the cigarette over the balcony rail and turned. The instant she looked at him, little as she knew of his character or noted his moods she saw she had gone too far. But she held a calm, undaunted front. "How you frightened me," said she, in a tone that had no fright in it. "I'm horribly tired. I must stop eating desserts. They wear one out." She stifled a yawn, took the small diamond sunburst from the front of her waist and laid it on the bureau. She seemed all but unconscious of his presence; in reality, by way of the bureau mirror, she was watching him as a duelist an adversary. "I shall fall asleep before I can get into bed."
"I shall detain you only a moment." His grave, exaggerated politeness did not decrease her inward agitation. "I simply wish to tell you," he went on, "that, as you seem determined to persist in your own mistaken way, I shall be compelled to ask Gallatin to stay away from the house in the evenings."
Her impulse was to smile disdain at the infantile futility of this. And the smile did come to her lips, and lingered there to mask the feelings that came surging with the second thought. For she instantly realized how helpless she was. This man had no part in her life nor she in his; yet he could impose his will upon her absolutely because he could take Basil away from her—not merely for the unimportant evenings, but altogether. He could make it impossible for Basil to remain—could do it by a mere word to him. And she who fancied she had provided against every possible contingency had never even thought of this, the most obvious peril, and the greatest! Faint, she leaned upon the bureau, spreading her arms so that she seemed to be merely at ease. "But why tell me about it?" said she to him. "Why didn't you simply say it to him?" She smiled contemptuously. "And what will he think?"
Dick's calm vanished. "I don't care a damn what he thinks," he cried. "At least, he'll not be sitting round watching you half dressed."
She drew herself up haughtily. "Good night," said she.
"I was out on the veranda," Dick rushed on. "I saw him. He forgot Helen—forgot decency—honor—everything—and leaned there, giving himself up to a debauch. Yes, to a debauch! And you are responsible. Not he—not at all. You, alone. At least, anger doesn't make me unjust. And I will say too, you were innocent in the matter—like a willful child. Good pure women don't appreciate——"
"But I do," interrupted she. "I'm not the imbecile Aunt Eudosia sort you admire so much."
"I tell you, the man's in love with you," cried Richard.