"Let's not talk of her, Ernestine," he said a little sharply.
"She's too holy for a woman like me to talk about, is she? She's a little cat, Dave Drennen! Can't you see that? Don't you know what she is after …"
"Ernestine!" he commanded harshly. "If I can help you, let me do it. If I can't, I'll go. In either case we'll not talk of Miss Bellaire."
She looked at him curiously, studying him, seeming for an instant to have grown quiet in mind as in body.
"She doesn't love you," she said calmly. "Not as I love you, Dave. If she did … nothing would matter. She's got baby eyes and a baby face … and she runs with men like Sefton and Lemarc!"
"I tell you," he cried sternly, "I'll not listen to you talk of her. If I can't help you …"
Her eyes shone hard upon his. Then her head dropped again and once more she was moaning as when he had first heard her, moaning and weeping, her body twisting. Again the man was all uncertainty.
"You would do anything for her!" she cried brokenly. "You would do nothing for me."
"I would do anything for you that you would let me and that I could do, Ernestine," he said gently.
"And," she went on, unheeding, "it is because of you that I am like this to-night!"