Bertie heard himself laugh, though he was unconscious of any amusement.
'I paid you a high price, and you cheated me,' he said.
'I paid you again. That was not enough, but you must needs tell her. That is the sort of woman you are.'
Dorothy sat up.
'Either you are mad or I,' she said. 'I think it is you. As I told you, your wife annoyed me. She was prim, priggish, Puritan. I thought it would do her good to know that once you were foolish enough to write me a letter. I wished I had kept it, I remember. I should have liked to have seen her face when I showed it her. I can't bear prigs. But you paying me, and I cheating you? If you will excuse the expression, I wish the devil you would tell me what you mean.'
Bertie leant forward.
'You are inimitable,' he said. 'I never much respected your power as an actress till to-day. But I see I was wrong. You told me you were getting rich. So rich, perhaps, that ten thousand pounds for a forgery, and then five thousand more, escape your memory.'
He got up; the mere statement of what she had done, now that he was face to face with her, infuriated him to a sort of madness of rage.
'If you will excuse the expression, you' devil,' he said.
He came a step nearer, and saw her shrink from him, and look round as if to see where the bell was.