As he spoke Clara rose from her seat and began to pace up and down the room. She had the lithe, quick movements of the tigress. She was wearing a dress with a dash of yellow in it. The dress was made of velvet and clung to her figure, which was lissom and graceful. When her husband stopped speaking she paused in front of him, her thin hands clasped.
“Why do you talk folly?” she said. “Why do you disguise your intentions and talk to me as if I did not know?”
“Because I think it best,” he replied. “We never can tell when our words may fall on other ears. That old proverb about the little bird comes true now and again, Clara. Understand once for all, that in this matter I intend from first to last to treat Pelham as if I myself believed in his guilt.”
“You are intolerable,” she cried, turning away from him. “I cannot work with you on those terms. If you will be above board, at least with me, I can then make up my mind whether I go with you or not.”
“Make up your mind whether you go with me or not?” he repeated in astonishment. “Have you ever had any doubt?”
“Many times,” she answered.
He glanced at her, read something in her downcast face and his own turned pale. Then starting to his feet he approached her. In an instant both her hands were in his grasp.
“Did you mean what you said just now?”
She looked up at him. Stout as her courage was, something in his eyes made her heart quail.
“I didn’t mean it,” she answered.