"Oh, hang the fiend of Tobit!" interrupted Trafford hotly. "I may be a lunatic, Bernhardt, but I'm a healthy-minded lunatic, if there is such a thing. I was making love, and we'll leave it at that, if you please, and drop all talk of delirium and fiends."
"I was finding an excuse for you."
"I don't need one, thank you." Trafford, as is the way with interrupted lovers, was in an irritable mood, and being so did not notice that Bernhardt was really angry.
"Indeed you do!" retorted the ex-priest. "I forbade you expressly to see the Queen, and I find you dining alone with her, and making violent love to her in addition."
"I received a command to dine."
"And a command to make love?" sneered Bernhardt.
"That is my affair."
Bernhardt turned from the irate American to the confused Gloria, and there was little deference in his regard.
"Your Majesty does not value your reputation too highly," he said. "As long as you play at being a maid it is as well to act like a maid."
"My reputation can look after itself," she retorted with dignity.