"It is no use being angry," she said quietly. "I came to try and make you hear reason. You may as well listen. She can't come to-night, and surely, meanwhile, we can sit down and talk it over--as friends!"
"We used to be friends, I admit," he replied coldly; "but if you are going to presume on friendship as you appear to have done, the sooner the farce ends the better."
For all that he sat down, his bold eyes taking in every detail of her altered appearance.
"Your dress suits you," he jibed. "I suppose you put it on to----"
"I had to put it on," she interrupted; "I had to pass muster. I didn't want to set the town talking. You know, as well as I, that it wasn't easy--it wasn't pleasant."
"No one asked you to do it," he replied, "and I wonder how you had the--the cheek!" Then suddenly he laughed; he could not help it. The whole business tickled him and his eyes took on a certain admiration. "It beats cock-fighting, my dear," he went on. "No one but you would have dared to do it. But it won't do, Marmie. You don't understand. That old man--I won't call him my father, Marmie--won't give me the two thousand pounds for my majority. Fantine Le Grand has shown me how to get it, and I----" He paused; in sober truth now he came to think of the plan for so getting it, the less it appealed to him.
Marrion waited a second, then said--
"How?"
There was no reason why he should have answered her categorically, but he did; perhaps at the back of his mind was a desire to know what she thought of it. He gave a forced laugh.
"We are to dance for it. Oh, I know all the stuff that's talked about dancing men and women, but we would go abroad! I should get leave of absence for six months on urgent private affairs, and no one would be a bit the worse."