"But if Madame Horton is an honorable woman——"
"You can count on that," put in Horton quickly. "She doesn't want your money—she isn't Quinlevin's kind——"
"Then why doesn't she renounce him?"
"She might—but what difference would that make? She might permit herself to think she was Joan of Arc, but that wouldn't make her any one but Patricia Madeleine Aulnoy de Vautrin, if Barry Quinlevin has evidence enough to prove that she is...."
De Vautrin frowned darkly and twitched his jeweled fingers.
"But she would have something to say about her own desires in the matter," he said.
"Her own desires haven't anything to do with it. See here, Monsieur de Vautrin—Barry Quinlevin proves her birth by a certificate; he also proves by the nurse that she was the child brought into his house, and the child he has brought up as his ward, bearing his name and accepting your money for twenty-one years—hush money, monsieur, that you paid to keep her out of a fortune you thought belonged to her."
"But it doesn't belong to her," cried de Vautrin, gesticulating. "It's mine since the child is dead. Monsieur Harry Horton——"
Piquette broke in. "Monsieur 'Arry 'Orton could be call' to the stan' of course, but 'is testimony is not to be relied upon."
"Your brother, Monsieur——?"