By an effort he raised his eyes. No man, he thought, since the beginning of the world was ever set a task so cruel as his. Painfully and slowly his lips parted.
“Everything in the world is wrong,” he said, in a slow, hard voice.
Eve said nothing but her color suddenly deepened.
Again Loder was unobservant. But with the dogged resolution that marked him he forced himself to his task.
“You despise lies,” he said, at last. “Tell me what you would think of a man whose whole life was one elaborated lie?” The words were slightly exaggerated, but their utterance, their painfully brusque sincerity, precluded all suggestion of effect. Resolutely holding her gaze he repeated his question.
“Tell me! Answer me! I want to know.”
Eve's attitude was difficult to read. She stood twisting the string of diamonds between her fingers.
“Tell me?” he said again.
She continued to look at him for a moment; then, as if some fresh impulse moved her, she turned away from him towards the fire.
“I cannot,” she said. “We—I—I could not set myself to judge—any one.”