"Oh, are you quite without feeling? What can I appeal to? Does position mean a great deal to you? If so, my brother is very influential, and I have influential friends. I will do anything—anything in my power. Tell me what—incentive you want!"
Field rose also. They stood face to face—the self-made man and the girl who could trace her descent from a Norman baron. He was broad-built, grim, determined. She was slender, pale, and proud.
For a moment he did not speak. Then, as her eyes questioned him, he turned suddenly to a mirror over the mantelpiece behind him and showed her herself in her unveiled beauty.
"Lady Violet," he said, and his speech had a steely, cutting quality, "you came into this room to bribe me to defend a man whom I believe to be a criminal from the consequences of his crime. And when you found I was not to be so easily bought as you imagined, you asked me if I were human. I replied to you that I was human, and not above temptation. Since then you have been trying—very hard—to find a means to tempt me. But—so far—you have overlooked the most obvious means of all. You have told me twice over that you will do anything in your power. Do you mean—literally—that?"
He was addressing the face in the glass, and still his look was almost brutally emotionless. It seemed to measure, to appraise. She met it for a few seconds, and then in spite of herself she flinched.
"Will you tell me what you mean?" she said in a low voice.
He turned round to her again.
"Why did you come here yourself?" he said. "And at night?"
She was trembling.
"I had to come myself—as soon as I knew. I hoped to persuade you."