The one thing that remained in her mind at the end of his speech was not in the least the main concern. She looked at him with pain in her eyes.
"Has it been nothing but a bit of theatricalism, after all?"
He dared not permit himself to answer from his heart. He kept up his show of amusement, or indifference to sentiment.
"We have played theatric rôles to a small but carefully selected audience," he said. "I for a fee, and you—for needful ends. We might as well be frank, as we were the day it all began."
It was the way of a woman to be hurt. She felt there was something of a sting in what he said. She knew she had halted his impassioned declaration of love—but only because of the right. She had heard it, despite her protest—and had treasured it since, and echoed it over in her heart repeatedly.
She wished him to say it all again—all of it and more—but—not just yet. She wanted him to let her know that he loved her more than anything else in the world, but not by spoken words of passion.
"I am sorry if I've seemed so—so heartless in it all," she said. "I hadn't the slightest intention of—of permitting you to——"
"I know," he interrupted, certain he knew what she meant. "I haven't accused anyone. It was all my own fault. We'll drop it, if you wish."
"You haven't let me finish," she insisted. "I started to say that I had no intention of making you feel like—like nothing more than an agent—toward me—I mean, I had no intention of appearing to you like a selfish, heartless woman, willing to sacrifice the sweetest—the various things of life to gain my ends. I want you to believe that I—I'd rather you wouldn't call it all just mere theatrics."
Garrison gripped his chair, to restrain the impulse to rise and take her in his arms. He could almost have groaned, for the love in his heart must lie there, dumb and all but hopeless.