She winced and her face went white.
“Friend—my dear friend,” she corrected, but so gently, and with so little real conviction in her voice that it was rather as though she admitted his definition of the relationship. “You are my friend. You must remain my friend... I want to keep—just that.”
There were tears in her eyes now. She did not attempt to hide them: they welled there, priceless diamonds from a mine of ungathered wealth, welled, and overflowed, and fell on the man’s breast. Matheson lay still, staring at her, and made no response.
“This is the last time we shall meet,” she went on quietly, striving after and regaining something of her old composure. “You must not come this way again. It would have been better for us both if you had not come now. Why did you come?”
“I did not expect to see you,” he replied, and evaded her eyes.
“I will tell you,” she said. “You are seeking Heinrich—to kill him. You meant to kill him...”
“I don’t know.” He moved uneasily. “I suppose that was it. He’s a spy. He has been guilty of the worst form of sedition... I didn’t know—how should I?—that—that you— Oh! my God! Honor, I would rather you had died than married him.”
“Hush!” She placed a finger on his lips and silenced him. “You mustn’t say those things to me. All that he has done he has done with my approval—for me and mine. He has worked for the Dutch cause for years...”
“And because of that,” he interrupted savagely, “you felt it necessary to reward him with all that you had to give... As though he hasn’t been well rewarded by his country, which pays its spies well for spreading sedition. And you’re no longer Dutch—you are a German subject. You’ve renounced your people by your marriage. He’ll renounce them too when it suits him.”
She drew back, hurt and angry.