Then he laid the money on the table.
“What is your fee?” She spoke very softly.
“My fee?” he repeated, as if he did not quite catch her meaning.
“Yes, your fee. How much are you charging this friend of yours for what you are doing for him?”
“I am doing it through friendship. There is no such thing as fee in a case like this.”
“You have earned this money, and I do not want it,” she went on. “I am not a blackmailer nor can my promise of immunity be bought. I, too, understand what the word friendship means, and I am not so degraded nor lost but that I can take advantage of it. It is such men as you and he that make such women as I am. Good-day.”
He was in the hall with the money in his hand before he quite realized how it all happened.
Between you and me, my friends, I would sooner have her conscience than the conscience of the very fine gentleman whose public career has since been marked by repeated triumphs.
