Lallie's little face grew set and hard, her grey eyes darkened, and the soft curves of her chin took on stern, purposeful lines.
"Just tell me this," she said. "Did he, when he described the somewhat stormy interview with Mrs. Atwood, give you to understand that it was his flirtation with the lady that I objected to? Did he say that now?"
"Well, naturally."
"Then he lied."
"Lallie, my dear child!"
"Since he has chosen to confide in you--though why, Heaven only knows--I will tell you exactly what happened. She made a scene, and he behaved like a brute to her; and it's because he behaved like a brute that I will have nothing more to do with him. He went back on her, Tony; denied that he'd ever cared a toss for her, and before me, too."
"Perhaps there was enormous provocation. You see, he is very much in love with you, and he wouldn't know how you would take it."
"That was evident. He did the one thing that I could never, never forgive. And now let's have an end of this, Tony; you've done your duty and pleaded his cause, and for your comfort I'll first tell you this: that if I had cared for him and there had been twenty Mrs. Atwoods, and each had come with a tale as long as your arm about him, it wouldn't have moved me an inch provided he was straight with me and generous and honest to them. As it happened I didn't care for him. I had decided that before there was any fuss at all with Mrs. Atwood. But when she came and, so to speak, put a pistol at my head, commanding me to give him up, I wasn't going to tell her that I'd done it already."
"But why not, if you had? It would have saved all the fuss."
"If you think I'm going to knuckle under to any idiotic, hysterical woman that chooses to bully me, just to save a fuss, you little know me, or any woman."