The indignant blood rushed in a flood of crimson to Nora’s face and forehead, until it nearly forced tears from her eyes.
‘How dare you! How dare you!’ she panted, as she retreated as far as she could from him.
‘How dare I?’ he repeated. ‘That wasn’t the way your ladyship used to receive the same proposition when we sat together under the shade of the orange-trees in Malta a couple of years ago. Was it now?’
‘I do not know. I cannot remember. I only know that your presence now is hateful to me. What sum do you require for those letters? If it was half our fortune I would give it you, sooner than be subjected to further insult. Tell me how much at once. I will sell all my jewels if I cannot raise the money otherwise!’
‘No, no, I’m not going to press you quite so hard as all that, Nora. I don’t want your jewels, my dear,’ replied Jack Portland, with offensive familiarity. ‘My price is—your silence.’
‘Silence about what? Do you imagine I am likely to talk about a matter which I would expunge with my lifeblood if I could.’
‘You mistake me. By your silence, I mean that you must no longer interfere, as you seem inclined to do, between your husband and myself. You must not try to separate us in any way; not in our friendship, nor our pursuits, nor our sports; we like to play cards together—’
‘You like, you mean,’ she interposed sarcastically.
‘Plait-il,’ acquiesced Jack Portland, with an expressive shrug; ‘at anyrate, we have been used to play cards and attend races and generally enjoy ourselves as bons camarades, and your ladyship will be good enough not to attempt to put an end to these things, not to remark in that delicately sarcastic way of yours that it is always your humble servant who appears to win. Do I make myself perfectly understood?’
‘Perfectly,’ said Nora, ‘and if I consent to this, what then?’