"I'm so glad you feel it that way," Clytie said. "It brings us together, doesn't it? It lessens the debt you would owe me." Her eyelids crinkled in a delicious expression of humor, as she added, "And it makes this place seem a little less like a Sunday-school room!"
"Oh, I suppose many a man has refused to reform for fear of being considered a prig!" he laughed. "But I haven't swept out all the corners yet. I must finish cleaning house before I invite you in."
"Why should we talk about it any more?"
"But it isn't all over!" he exclaimed. "I haven't told everything. It's all over, so far as I am concerned—I shall not go back—but now you are involved in it. Could anything drag me lower than that?"
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Only that, because of my fault in not warning you before, your father has already become the latest dupe for this gang of fakirs. I'm afraid he's in their power. Hasn't he told you anything about it?"
"A little. What is there to fear from them?"
"Of course, it's only his money they're after. They have got hold of considerable information about him—I don't know just how or what—and they have succeeded in hoodwinking him into a belief that they have supernatural powers. I'm afraid it's no use for me to attempt to expose them. He'd never believe anything I could say."
"No, that's useless. He has taken a violent prejudice against you, for some reason."
"Oh, the reason is easy to find. I've made enemies of Madam Spoll and Vixley, and they have probably done their best to hurt my reputation. They made me a proposition to join them; in fact, their scheme was for me to work you for information—make love to you, in order to help them rob your father."