“Don’t let us stop... What’s the use? I don’t want to walk; it’s pleasanter driving. And I must not be late in getting back.”
“I will see that you are back in ample time,” he answered. “But I want you to get out here. You needn’t walk far. I’ll tell the man to wait for us at the bottom of this hill.”
He spoke to the chauffeur, and the car stopped. Dare got out and helped the girl to alight. She looked at him with faint resentment in her eyes, as they remained standing together beside the road while the car drove swiftly away.
“I asked you not to,” she said protestingly.
“I know,” he said. “Forgive me for disregarding the request. I wanted to talk with you more privately. Plainly we couldn’t discuss this matter before a third person.”
“I don’t wish to discuss it,” she returned, getting off the road and beginning to walk in the direction taken by the car. “I fail to see why you, who are almost a stranger to me, should persist in discussing a subject which you must know is unpleasant for me to listen to. It is ungenerous of you to have brought me out with such an object.”
“Oh! no,” he replied. “I can’t see it in that light. It is to your interest, as well as to Mrs Arnott’s, to clear up this matter.”
“Please leave me out of it. Would you,” she asked, looking at him deliberately, “have taken so much trouble on my account?”
“Possibly not,” he admitted. “But since it is my intention to get to the bottom of this business, I could wish at the same time to be of service to you. It is not good for a girl to have her name coupled with that of a married man. You would be well advised in helping me to stop the thing.”
“It is easier to float a scandal than to stop one,” she returned impassively.