"Did I really say anything that was not—the fact? I tried particularly not to. But I did let you deceive yourself about it: that is quite true and I'm sorry. I did it because—well, because if I hadn't done it, you were not going to let me walk home with you."
She leaned against the little desk at which the Academy man sat to sell tickets, and hesitated, almost imperceptibly. "Then why," she asked, "should you wish to undeceive me now?"
"You know why," he answered. "If I don't, something tells me that you are not going to speak to me any more."
Her silence conceded the truth of this. It began to be evident how difficult he had made matters for himself.
Varney laughed. "I am determined to make you believe me, yet just how am I to go about it? It's rather an absurd position, when you come to think of it—this arguing with somebody as to who one is. Suppose I were that fellow, Miss Carstairs. How could I possibly hope to come back to my old hometown and persuade people to believe that I am somebody else?"
Her eyes had wandered out through the little grated window, and she made no reply.
"You see how preposterous that would be. A mere resemblance is not enough to condemn a man upon, Miss Carstairs."
She turned her head with a sudden gesture of annoyance. "What difference can it possibly make whether I speak to you or not, Mr. St—"
"Don't!" he interrupted swiftly. "You know my name. You shall not call me by that one."
Hare's neat pink face appeared at the ticket-window, for all the world like a belated theatre-goer, anxious for several in the orchestra.