She raised her eyebrows. Her tone altered.
"It must be as you wish, of course," she continued; "only I have such pleasant recollections of your hospitality at Peak Hall that I should like, if there was any possible way in which I could return it—"
"Madam," he interrupted, "you must admit that the hospitality of Peak Hall was not willingly offered to you. Save for the force of circumstances, you would never have crossed our threshold."
She shrugged her shoulders. She was adapting her tone and manner to the belligerency of his attitude.
"Well?"
"You want to know why I have found my way to London?" he went on. "I came to find out a little more about you."
"About me?"
"To discover if there was anything about you," he proceeded deliberately, "concerning which report had lied. I do not place my faith in newspapers and gossip. There was always a chance that you might have been an honest woman. That is why I came to London, and why I went to see your play last night."
She was speechless. It was as if he were speaking to her in some foreign tongue.
"I have struggled," he continued, "to adopt a charitable view of your profession. I know that the world changes quickly, while we, who prefer to remain outside its orbit, of necessity lose touch with its new ideas and new fashions. So I said to myself that there should be no mistake. For that reason I sat in a theater last night almost for the first time in my life. I saw you act."