‘Now why must you do that?’ Marcia inquired.
‘A sense of fellow-feeling—I’ve watched too many women playing with too many men not to know how the poor beast felt. His progress was thwarted at every turn, without his being able to comprehend any underlying motive or reason or law.’
‘It was good for him,’ she affirmed. ‘I was giving him a new experience—was widening his horizon. When I finally let him go he would have been so thankful to think of the danger he had escaped, that he would have been twice as happy a beetle as ever before.’
‘That is one way of looking at it,’ Sybert agreed.
Marcia watched him a moment speculatively. She was thinking about the Contessa Torrenieri.
‘Mr. Sybert,’ she suggested, ‘there are a lot of things I should like to know about you.’
‘I can think of nothing in my past that ought to be hidden.’
‘These are things that you wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Try me and see.’
‘Anything I choose to ask?’