"I have an object to gain, which I am resolved to achieve. Two ways to the attainment of this object are open to me; the one injurious, in fact destructive, to you and Madame Durski, the other eminently beneficial. I am interested in you. I particularly like Madame Durski, though I am not one of the legion of her professed admirers."
Miss Brewer shook her head sadly. That legion was much reduced in its numbers of late.
"Therefore," continued Carrington, without seeming to observe the gesture, "I prefer to adopt the latter course, and further your interests in securing my own. I suppose you can at least understand and credit such very plain motives, so very plainly expressed, Miss Brewer?"
"Yes," she said, "that may be true; it does not seem unlikely; we shall see."
"You certainly shall. My explanation will not, I hope, be unduly tedious, but it is indispensable that it should be full. You know, Miss Brewer, that Sir Reginald Eversleigh and I are intimate friends?"
Miss Brewer smiled—a pale, prolonged, unpleasant smile, and then replied, speaking very deliberately:
"I know nothing of the kind, Mr. Carrington. I know you are much together, and have an air of familiar acquaintance, which is the true interpretation of friendship, I take it, between men of the world—of your world in particular."
The hard and determined expression of her manner would have discouraged and deterred most men. It did not discourage or deter Victor Carrington.
"Put what interpretation you please upon my words," he said, "but recognize the facts. There is a strict alliance, if you prefer that phrase, between me and Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and his present intimacy, with his seeming devotion to Madame Durski, prevents him from carrying out the terms of that alliance to my satisfaction. I am therefore resolved to break off that intimacy. Do you comprehend me so far?"
"Yes, I comprehend you so far," answered Miss Brewer, "perfectly."