"Let me go!" she gasped, struggling. "You're hurting me. We'll be seen! Let me go!"
Hector flamed into frightened rage—he was very young and knew nothing of women.
"Who are you?" he panted. "What do you mean by it? Supposing we'd been caught like this? You fool—you fool!—"
"Let me go!" she begged.
"Answer me, will you?" he stormed.
Realizing that this was a woman several years older than himself, he became suddenly conscious of his helplessness in her hands and felt something not far from terror seize him.
"What am I to think of you?"
"Shut up!" White, with agonized tears in her eyes, she looked defiantly into his face. "I won't have you talk to me like this. Oh, I know I've run the risk of ruining myself and hurting you, but I don't care—no, I don't! I'm just as straight as—as—" She mastered herself with an effort. "Listen! Do you think I'd have dressed myself up like this otherwise? Gone to all this trouble? And taken these chances? And kept you out of my rooms? You bet I wouldn't! I'd have dressed myself up to kill and stopped you on the street. But a—a straight girl can't do that! So I had to do this. It was the only way. Oh, can't you see?"
"Had to! The only way!"
Bitter scorn lashed her.