All this while her mind had been reverting again and again to Clifford. After a time Clifford and her dominating concern began to be linked together. At length there came a day when, obeying an impulse, she called Clifford up.
Within an hour she was opening her door to him. Silently she led the way across the dingy, chintz-furnished sitting-room, and with a rather stiff formality the pair seated themselves.
“You sent for me,” Clifford began, quietly enough.
“Yes. I want you to help me.”
“Would you mind explaining?”
Already she had taken on that cool, defiant, challenging manner which seemed instinctive with her in all her dealings with him. “You helped get me into my marriage with Jack Morton. You said that experience was the only thing which could make me over—and that this marriage might prove to be the best possible experience by which Life could change me. Remember that?”
“I did say something to that effect,” he replied quietly, watching her and still wondering.
“Well, I am not going to be changed; I have told you that. But I have accepted your challenge, and I’ll play the thing through to the finish. But you are partly responsible for my position. That’s why I have the right to ask you to help me.”
He stared. Only one so essentially defiant in spirit, so audaciously self-confident, could be saying such things so quietly.
“You want me to lose out,” she went on, “but even so, I know you’ll help me if you promise to do so. I’ll admit that there is no other person I can call on who can really help me.”