A trace of darker colour crept into Hawtrey's face, but while she was a little astonished at this he looked at her steadily. He had not thought much about her during the last month, but now the faint scorn in her voice had stirred him.
"Now," he said, "there are just three reasons, Aggy, why you should have troubled yourself about this thing. You are, perhaps, a little sorry for Moran's wife, but as you haven't even seen her that can hardly count for much. The next is, that you don't care to see me doing what you regard as a shabby thing; perhaps it is a shabby thing in some respects, but I feel it's justifiable. Of course, if that's your reason there's a sense in which, while not exactly complimentary—it's consoling."
He broke off, and looked at her with a question in his eyes, and it cost Agatha an effort to meet them. She was not prudish or over conscious of her own righteousness, but once or twice after the shock of her disillusionment in regard to him had lessened she had dreamed of the possibility of enduing him little by little with some of the qualities she had once fancied he possessed, and, as she vaguely thought of it, rehabilitating him. Now, however, the thing seemed impossible, and, what was more, the desire to bring it about had gone. Hateful as the situation was becoming, she was honest, and she could not let him credit her with a motive that had not influenced her.
In the meanwhile, her very coldness and aloofness stirred desire in the man, and she shrank as she saw a spark of passion kindling in his eyes. It was merely passion, she felt, for she recognised that there was a strain of grossness in him.
"No," she said, "that reason was not one which had any weight with me."
Hawtrey's face hardened. "Then," he said grimly, "we'll get on to the third. Wyllard's credit is a precious thing to you; sooner than anything should cast a stain on it you would beg a favour from—me. You have set him up on a pedestal, and it would hurt you if he came down. Considering everything, it's a remarkably curious situation."
Agatha grew a trifle pale. Gregory was horribly right, for she had no doubt now that he had merely thrust upon her a somewhat distressing truth. It was to save Wyllard's credit, and for that alone she had undertaken this most unpalatable task. She did not answer, and Hawtrey stood up.
"Wyllard has his faults, but there's this in his favour—he keeps a promise," he said. "One has a certain respect for a person who never goes back upon his word. Well, because I really think he would like it, I'll keep those men."
He paused for a moment, as if to let her grasp the drift of this, and then turned to her with something that startled her in his voice and manner. "The question is—are you willing to emulate his example?"
Agatha shrank from the glow in his eyes. "Oh!" she broke out, "you cannot urge me now—after what you said."