"Dear, it's dreadful the way you men let your chivalry run away with you. I suppose if you were on a jury, you couldn't bring yourself to convict a woman of murder."
"I hardly think Miss Kent's offense can be classed in that category," Forbes said stiffly. "I suffered chiefly through the jolt to my sense of dignity. That's always been a sensitive point with me."
Julia sighed. "I can't bear to have you talk that way, Burton. It's bad enough for Mr. Warren to make light of falsehood and treachery. But it seems to me a person capable of that, is capable of anything." She laid her hand lightly on his. "Trust a woman's intuition, Burton. Let me write that letter."
Her touch not only left him cold, but roused his antagonism. He felt an irritated certainty that he was being played upon. "Thank you, but I have nothing to say to Miss Kent that I can not entrust to a public stenographer."
She did not take away her hand. "Let's not talk of that dreadful woman any more," she said, in a lowered voice. "Fate has given us this little hour out of the years, and we mustn't waste it."
Her words brought back something Agatha had said, her scathing scorn of those who took the easy way, and then held fate accountable. The remembrance steeled him against the insidious tenderness of her voice.
"You made your choice, Julia, as you had a right to do. And I wish you every happiness."
The fragrance of a delicate perfume he had always associated with her enveloped him. He felt the pressure of her body against his arm.
"What a queer, quiet hotel this is, Burton. Right in the heart of the city and yet we're as much alone as if we were off somewhere in the woods."
Had she been sensitive, she might have perceived a curious rigidity in the arm against which she leaned, an ominous tightening of the obstinately silent lips. Her vanity felt the challenge of his failure to respond. She flung prudence to the winds. "Burton! Burton!" she murmured, and whether her emotion was real or assumed, he did not know, "why don't you kiss me?"