Maud Barrington laughed softly. "Isn't the question useless?"
"No," said Winston, a trifle hoarsely now.
The girl touched his arm almost imperiously as he turned his head again.
"Lance," she said. "Men of your kind need not deal in subterfuge. The wheat and the bridge you built speak for you."
"Still," persisted Winston, and the girl checked him with a smile.
"I fancy you are wasting time," she said. "Now, I wonder whether, when you were in England, you ever saw a play founded on an incident in the life of a once famous actor. At the time it rather appealed to me. The hero, with a chivalric purpose assumed various shortcomings he had really no sympathy with--but while there is, of course, no similarity beyond the generous impulse, between the cases--he did not do it clumsily. It is, however, a trifle difficult to understand what purpose you could have, and one cannot help fancying that you owe a little to Silverdale and yourself."
It was a somewhat daring parallel, for Winston, who dare not look at his companion and saw that he had failed, knew the play.
"Isn't the subject a trifle difficult?" he asked.
"Then," said Maud Barrington, "we will end it. Still, you promised that I should understand--a good deal--when the time came."
Winston nodded gravely. "You shall," he said.