“Perhaps I do,” she admitted unwillingly.
“And you don’t pretend you’d ’ve faced such a prospect in order to clear me?”
Again she had no answer for him. He turned up the room to the windows and back again.
“I didn’t think,” he said slowly, stopping before her—“I couldn’t have thought you could be so heartless, so self-centred ...!”
She rose suddenly and put a pleading hand upon his arm, standing very near him in all her loveliness.
“Say thoughtless, Staff,” she said quietly; “I didn’t mean it.”
“That’s hard to credit,” he replied steadily, “when I’m haunted by the memory of the lies you told me—to save yourself a few dollars honestly due the country that has made you a rich woman—to gain for yourself a few paltry columns of cheap, sensational newspaper advertising. For that you lied to me and put me in jeopardy of Sing-Sing ... me, the man you pretend to care for—”
“Hold on, Staff!” the woman interrupted harshly.
He moved away. Her arm dropped back to her side. She eyed him a moment with eyes hard and unfriendly.
“You’ve said about enough,” she continued.