"Well, let me have your understanding of it," I said sarcastically.
"He was in love with her," said Sadie. "I suppose you don't question that."
"No, strange as it seems, I believe he was in love with her."
"That makes goose eggs of all your fine reasoning! Reason all night and it wouldn't make sense. He might have stolen anybody else's pearls but never hers. It was she who wronged love in believing that he could. To find out that she suspected him killed his love dead. Losing that, what did he care about his reputation? If he does away with himself it will be not because he was accused of a theft, but because she killed his trust in her, and he doesn't care to live without it."
I listened to all this with an affected smile of superiority, but it reached me. Every word that the unhappy Quarles had uttered fitted in with Sadie's theory.
"Suppose some one accused you of stealing Miss Hamerton's purse to buy me a present," she went on, artfully changing her tone. "I would make a tremendous virtuous fuss, of course, but in my heart I couldn't love you any less, though you might not have the sense to know it. But if they said you had stolen my purse to buy me something, how I would laugh! It's too silly for words."
I was rapidly weakening, but it was damnably hard to own up.
"The same with this case. You think I'm in love with Quarles because I defend him. That's just like a man! The truth is, what hurts me is to see you deceive yourself, and then look fatuous about it."
She was now wielding a double-edged sword. "But if the woman who loves him was deceived, surely I have some excuse," I said meekly.
"That's the weakness of her character—or the penalty of her position, whichever you like. She is so surrounded by flattery and meanness, it has taught her to suspect even her lover."