Their eyes met. "Nothing to do with this?" he repeated, as if trying to understand.
"It's between you and me," she repeated.
His eyes turned away, as if he were reflecting upon this. Silence again. Then he: "I don't know what to do. I know it's so, but I can't believe it. It's not like you—not at all." He looked at her. She met his gaze steadily. His eyes shifted. "Not at all," he repeated. He was still talking as if to a stranger. She understood why; it would have been impossible for any force, even such a discovery as this, to galvanize into a living personality, with a mind to think and to will, the woman who had for six years been mere incident in his busy life, "Not at all like you," he again repeated. "Yet—why did I feel it was true as soon as Nanny told me?"
She remained silent and motionless.
"Why don't you speak?" he demanded, trying to rouse himself to reality. "Why don't you defend yourself?"
So long as she did not defend, he could not attack. She did not answer.
"You do not deny. You admit?"
She was silent.
"He is safe, so long as he keeps away. You need not be afraid to confess that he took advantage of a moment of weakness." It was an offer of a defense he would accept.
She refused it instantly. "That is not true," she said.