She disliked the reply, which seemed cowardly somehow, and said with dignity: "It's purely a business matter, and of course I make no promises about it at all. If there has been any injustice, it was of course done without my father's knowledge. I have no idea what he will do about it, but whatever he decides will of course be right."
The man turned back to her, hardly as if he had heard.
"The trouble is," he said, in an odd voice, harder than she had supposed him to possess, "I didn't trust you. I--"
"Really that's of no consequence. I'm not concerned in it at--"
"I was sure all the time you would--be willing to do it," he went on, in the same troubled way. "I was sure. And yet last night I went off and spoke to somebody else about it--a man who has influence with MacQueen--John Farley--a--a sort of saloonkeeper. Corinne is back at work this morning."
The girl struggled against an absurd sense of defeat. She wished now--oh, how she wished!--that she had gone away immediately after giving him mamma's and papa's cards....
"Oh!" she said, quite flatly.... "Well--in that case--there is no more to be said."
But there he seemed to differ with her. "I'd give a good deal," he said slowly, "if I'd only waited.... Could you let me say how sorry I am--"
"Please don't apologize to me! I've told you before that I--I detest apologies...."
"I was not apologizing to you exactly," said V. Vivian, with a kind of little falter.