It seemed to Marie-Louise that she was living through some terrible, horrible dream. She reached out behind her, groping for the modelling platform, and sank down upon it. Mademoiselle's laugh was echoing through the room again, and there was something—something so menacing in it that it made her shudder.
"Love!"—Myrna Bliss was quivering with passion, as she stepped fiercely toward Paul Valmain. "Love! If I were a man, I would kill you for that kind of love! I would kill you! You beast! You dared to think—to think that I had come here in the middle of the night alone, to—to spend the night here! You dared to think that of me! That—that I was—"
"Myrna! Mademoiselle!"—his hands went out to her. His face was ghastly white. "Wait! For God's sake—wait! You do not understand!" He whirled around and pointed to Marie-Louise. "Look at her! Look! It is your cloak—your hat! It was dark across the street. She was wearing your hat and cloak!"
"I heard you say all that before!" she retorted instantly. "I do not care what she was wearing! I do not care what she looked like! You dared to think that it was me! You dared to hold me as little better than a woman of the streets! You dared to do that—you despicable hound!" Her fingers were opening and shutting spasmodically. "I hate you! I loathe you! I would strangle you for it, if I were strong enough!"
He shrank back from her, his lips working.
"You are merciless!" he said in a choked way. "You—you do not understand. You—you do not understand what helped to make me—to—why I came to be there last night. It was the key of that door there, the key of the door to the salon, the afternoon after the reception."
Myrna Bliss appeared to control herself with an effort.
"The key!"—there was well-simulated bewilderment in the quick, angry exclamation.
"When we came in," he said hurriedly. "Laparde, who was acting strangely, had just unlocked the door, and he was still holding the key in his hand without knowing it."
It was a moment before she spoke—while her eyes swept him scornfully from head to foot.