"You told me you had twenty diseases, but even that wouldn't exonerate you from letting her hear what was not meant for her ears."
"Ah! I'm glad you acknowledge even so much," breaks in Tita vindictively.
"Even though they weren't meant for your ears I'm glad you heard them," says Rylton, turning to her with all the air of one who isn't going to give in at any price. "But as for you, Margaret, I did not expect this from you. I believed you stanch, at all events, and honest; yet you deliberately let me say what was in my mind, knowing there was an unseen listener who would be sure to make the worst of all she heard."
"Tita, you shall explain this!" says Margaret, turning with a tragic gesture towards her. "Speak. Tell him."
"What is the good of telling him anything?" says Tita, regarding her coldly. "Yet though you have forsaken me, Margaret, I will do as you wish." She turns to Rylton. "It was against Margaret's wish that I hid behind that screen. I heard you coming, and there was no way out of the room except by the door through which you would enter, and rather than meet you I felt"—with a sudden flash of her large eyes at him—"I would willingly die. So I got behind that screen, and—and" She pauses. "Well, that's all," says she.
"You see it was not my fault," says Margaret.
She lets a passing glance fall on Rylton, and with an increase of dignity in her air leaves the room. The two left behind look strangely at each other.
"So you were listening?" says Rylton. "Listening all that time?"
"You wrong me as usual. I was not listening all the time. I didn't want to listen at all. Do you think I ever wanted to hear your voice again?"
"I didn't flatter myself so far, as to this,"—bitterly—"and yet——"