"Why are you wasting your time among these canaille? This is not a place for you. Why did you come?"
"I don't know," said Ste. Marie. He was still a little resentful, and he said so. He said: "I didn't know it was going to be like this. I came because Stewart went rather out of his way to ask me. I'd known him in a very different milieu."
"Ah, yes!" she said, reflectively. "Yes, he does go into the world also, doesn't he? But this is what he likes, you know." Her lips drew back for an instant, and she said: "He is a pig-dog!"
Ste. Marie looked at her gravely. She had used that offensive name with a little too much fierceness. Her face had turned for an instant quite white, and her eyes had flashed out over the room a look that meant a great deal to any one who knew her as well as Ste. Marie did. He sat forward and lowered his voice. He said:
"Look here, Olga! I'm going to be very frank for a moment. May I?"
For just an instant the girl drew away from him with suspicion in her eyes, and something else, alertly defiant. Then she put out her hands to his arm.
"You may be what you like, dear Ste. Marie," she said, "and say what you like. I will take it all--and swallow it alive--good as gold. What are you going to do to me?"
"I've always been fair with you, haven't I?" he urged. "I've had disagreeable things to say or do, but--you knew always that I liked you and--where my sympathies were."
"Always! Always, mon cher!" she cried. "I trusted you always in everything. And there is no one else I trust. No one! No one!--Ste. Marie!"
"What then?" he asked.