She laid aside her work with heightened colour. "Charlie, I have some rather serious things to say to you."
"My dear girl," he protested, "must you?"
"Yes, I must, and you must listen." She spoke with resolution. "I will be as brief as I possibly can, but I must speak. Smoke--please smoke--if you want to!"
He laughed a little, leaning towards her. "On second thoughts, I don't. This promises to be interesting, after all. Do you know when I came in just now you looked so prim that I was nearly frightened quite away?"
She was looking him straight in the face. "Charlie, why did you come?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Ask the needle why it follows the magnet!" he said.
His eyes caressed her, but she steadily faced them. "I ought to hate you," she said. "But I don't. I think of you always--in spite of myself--as a friend. I suppose that is a woman's way--to be tricked and to forgive. Anyhow, I forgave you a long while ago. I believe I have even begun to forget. Charlie, I know that you are capable of a sincere friendship. I can't help knowing it."
"You deceive yourself," he said lightly. His eyes still dwelt upon her, but it was with a half-tender mockery, as one who smiles at the make-believe of a child.
Her lips quivered a little. "No," she said. "It is the truth. You are pleased to wear a mask--but I know--the real man. I know that you are often crooked in your dealings, often cruelly malicious and vindictive; but at the back of it all there is a man capable of big things, of chivalry, generosity, and honest kindness of heart. Charlie, I appeal to that man!"
"What do you want of him?" said Saltash. And still he looked at her, but again his look had changed. The mockery had given place to a species of dispassionate curiosity. His ugly face had the odd melancholy as of something longed for but hopelessly lost which may be seen on the face of a monkey.