“I never thought you had—”
“Nor did I think you had—till now.”
Puzzled, she faltered: “I don’t understand—”
“Surely you don’t wish me to believe my pretty Sofia has turned thief?”
That stung her pride. She drew upon an unsuspected store of spirit, confronting him bravely.
“What is it to me, what you choose to think?”
“I refuse to think that of you. My reason will not let me believe it.”
She saw that he was shaking with rage; so she shrugged and drawled: “Oh, your reason—!”
“It tells me you for one did not come here to-night uninvited.” He was rapidly losing grip on his temper. “Oh, it’s plain enough! I was a fool not to understand, there in the auction room, when my face was slapped with proof of your liaison with this Lanyard!”
She said in mild expostulation: “But you are quite mad.”