"And yet—" She made a slight gesture of remonstrance, as if the piercing brightness of his eyes were more than she could bear.
He pushed back his chair and rose. He came to her as she sat, bent over her, his hand on her shoulder, and looked at her intently.
"Juliet," he said, "I don't like you with that stuff on your face. It isn't—you."
She kept her face steadily upturned, enduring his look with no sign of shrinking. "You are meeting—the real me—for the first time—to-night," she said.
His mouth curved cynically. "I think not. I have never worshipped at the shrine of a painted goddess."
Something rose in her throat and she put up a hand to hide it. "I doubt if—Dene Strange—was ever capable of worshipping anything," she said.
His hand closed upon her. "Does that mean that you hate him more than you love me?" he said.
A faint quiver crossed her face. She passed the question by. "Do you remember—Cynthia Paramount—your heroine?" she said. "The woman you dissected so cleverly—stripped to the naked soul—and exposed to public ridicule? You were terribly merciless, weren't you, Dick? You didn't expect—some day—to find yourself married—to that sort of woman."
His face hardened. "In what way do you resemble her?" he said. "I have never seen it yet."
"Can't you see it—now?" she returned, lifting her face more fully to the light.