She did not finish the sentence, but stood looking at him with an expression of serious doubt upon her lovely face that made Greif laugh again.
‘Because if that were it,’ she said gravely, ‘Rex might go, and I should be glad of it—’
‘Hilda! How can you have such ideas!’ cried Greif at last. Her innocence was so astounding that he could not find words to answer her at once.
‘There might be just a possibility—’
‘That you, in your heart of hearts, are not satisfied with me alone, but want to make a conquest of Rex besides! Poor Rex! How he would laugh at the idea—Hilda, you must not think such things!’
‘Is it wrong?’ she asked, turning her clear eyes upon him.
‘Wrong? No. It is not wrong to any one but yourself, and it is really very wrong to believe that you could be capable of a contemptible, silly vanity like that.’
‘You do not think I should be—what do they call it—a coquette—if you took me into the world?’
‘You? Never!’ And Greif laughed again, as he well might.
In a woman differently brought up it would have been impossible not to suppose that such words were spoken out of sheer affectation, but Greif knew too well how Hilda had lived, to suspect such a thing. Her innocence was such that she did not understand the commonest feelings of women in the world, not even the most harmless.