She touched his hand, leading him to a couch and sitting near him, her hat still on, a flush on her pale face.
"Hylda"—her heart leapt: he called her "Hylda"!—"you know where Miss Marsh is."
She sprang to her feet in a passion.
"So it is to talk to me about another woman that you have come? I who have humbled myself, lost my self-respect——"
Osborne, too, stood up, stung to the quick by this mood of hers, so foreign to the disease of impatience and care in which he was being consumed.
"My good girl," he said, "are you going to be reasonable?"
"Come, then," she retorted, "let us be reasonable." She sat down again, her hands crossed on her lap, a passionate vindictiveness in her pursed lips, but a mock humility in her attitude.
"Tell me! tell me! Where shall I find her?" and he bent in eager pleading.
"No. How is it possible that I should tell you?"
"But you do know! Somehow you do! I see and feel it. Tell it me, Hylda! Where is she?"