"Will you please tell me what it is?" I asked humbly. "If I have said or done anything clumsy give me a chance, at any rate, to let you see how sorry I am."
She turned and faced me then.
"It is not your fault," she assured me; "only I am a little annoyed with my father."
"Why?"
"I think," she went on, "it is perfectly delightful that he should have made your acquaintance. It isn't that at all. But I do not think he should have made use of you in the way he did. He is utterly reckless sometimes and forgets what he is doing. It is all very well for himself, but he has no right to expose you to—to—"
"To what risk did he expose me?" I demanded. "Tell me, Miss Parker—was he absolutely honest when he told me he was an adventurer?"
"Absolutely!"
"Was I, then, an accomplice in anything illegal to-night?"
"Worse than illegal—criminal!" she told me.
Now my father had been a judge and I had a brother who was a barrister; but the madness was upon me and I spoke quickly and convincingly.