Coral laughed, and Beatrice noticed the music in her voice.
"Aw, come off!" she exclaimed. "What you giving us? Guess you've been getting rich and turned respectable."
Harding cast a quick glance round. Beatrice and Mrs. Mowbray sat near, and it would be difficult to defend himself to either. The girl had made an unfortunate mistake, or perhaps expected to find him an easy victim; now he began to understand the note. The blood filled his face and he looked guilty in his embarrassment and anger, for he saw that he was helpless. The hotel people would not interfere; and to repulse the woman rudely or run away from her was likely to attract the attention he wished to avoid.
"You have mistaken me for somebody else," he replied uneasily.
She gave him a coquettish smile.
"Well, I guess you're Craig Harding unless you've changed your name as well as your character. I reckoned you'd come back to me when I heard you were in town. You ought to feel proud I came to look for you, when you didn't answer my note."
There was something seductive and graceful in her mocking courtesy, but Harding lost his temper.
"I've had enough! You don't know me, and if you try to play this fool game I'll have you fired out!"
"That to an old friend—and a lady!" she exclaimed. "You've surely lost the pretty manners that made me love you."
Harding turned in desperation, and started to the door; but she followed, putting her hand on his shoulder, and some of the bystanders laughed. Beatrice, quivering with the shock, hated them for their amusement. Even if he were innocent, Harding had placed himself in a horribly humiliating position. But she could not think him innocent. All she had seen and heard condemned him.