If Mallison had counted on such toleration as she had shown him by the street door half an hour earlier, his lamentable error was made manifest to him without an instant's grace. Folly fought him like a miniature fury, and to such effect that she was free while her defiance was still an echo in the room—free and swelling her throat with a scream when he plunged upon his knees before her and threw wide arms of suppliance.
"Please, please!" he begged—"don't call for help. I'll do anything you say, promise to be good and go quietly when you choose to send me away—only, don't call your servants. Think what they'd think!"
"What's that to me?" Folly demanded. "What do I care what they think of you?"
"It's you I'm considering," the man protested—"it's what they'd think of you I'm worrying about. You can't imagine they'd give you the benefit of the doubt . . ."
"Benefit of what doubt?"
"Do you suppose they'd believe I ever found my way up here without your invitation?"
"Is a woman always suspected of enticing the man who breaks into her house like a thief? I'll risk that."
"No—for God's sake! wait, listen to me, Folly! I don't deserve to be thrown out, you owe me fairer treatment—"
"I owe you what?"
"You're a woman, not a school-girl—you know what you've been doing to me these last few weeks, you know you've driven me half out of my head flirting with me."