“Ann!” cried Brett triumphantly. “I wondered—I half doubted whether you would come, after all! Let me help you,” he added quickly, as the woman threw back the fur wrap she was wearing, and with a deft movement, untwisted the scarf from her hair.
“It’s not Ann,” said a cool feminine voice, and with a swift turn of her wrist the visitor drew the swathing scarf aside and revealed the small dark head and pansy-purple eyes of the lady from the Priory.
Brett fell back a pace, his face wearing an expression of such blank amazement that for a moment Cara could hardly refrain from laughing out loud. But he recovered himself with surprising quickness, and looked her up and down with characteristic coolness.
“I don’t think I remember inviting you for to-night,” he said slowly.
“No,” she replied. “I’ve come instead of Ann. Brett, you had no right to ask her here.”
His eyes flashed wickedly, but he preserved his coolness.
“That, I think, is my business,” he responded.
“It’s not.” A note of deep feeling came into her voice. “It’s the business of every one who cares for Ann to protect her from her own rash unselfishness. Just to please yourself, you asked her to come here, without a thought as to how it would affect her reputation—how people might talk. And you used those bills of Tony’s as a lever.”
“Really, your perspicacity does you credit,” he returned ironically. “I saw no other way of getting her here, so, as you truthfully remark, I used those bits of paper as a lever.”
“Well”—quickly. “I’ve come for those bits of paper, as you call them.”