"Not until you have told me the truth."
"But what is the truth?" She cried out, with sudden anger. "Do you suppose I am the kind of woman to talk of a man's being 'taken away,' as if he were a loaf of bread to be handed from one woman to another? If he had ever been what I believed him, do you imagine that any one could have 'taken' him? Is there any man on earth who could have taken me from Alan?"
"What has made the trouble, Mary?" He put the question very slowly, as if he were weighing every word that he uttered.
She flung the pretense aside as bravely as she had dashed the tears from her eyes. "Of course I have known all along that she was only flirting—that she was only playing the game——"
"Then you think that the young fool has been taking Angelica too seriously?"
At this her anger flashed out again. "Seriously enough to make me break my engagement!"
"All because he likes to read his plays to her?"
"All because he imagines her to be misunderstood and unhappy and ill-treated. Oh, David, will you never wake up? How much longer are you going to walk about the world in your sleep? No one has said a breath against Angelica—no one ever will—she isn't that kind. But unless you wish Alan to be ruined, you must send him away."
"Isn't she the one to send him away?"
"Then go to her. Go to her now, and tell her that she must do it to-day."