“How did you come here?” he asked.
“Judy sent for me.”
“Ah,” he replied significantly.
He resumed his scrutiny of the outdoor world and for a long time made no further remark. Vivienne slipped to a corner of a sofa. After a time he began to pace up and down the room talking bitterly, half to himself, half to her.
“Always the same—trust and deceit, honor and lies. They are all in league against me. They deceive me in one direction and I am on my guard there; then there is a change of position and I am attacked in some other place. Vivienne,” abruptly, “I would rather see you dead than deceitful.”
He had paused close to her, and as he spoke he gazed into her face with piercing scrutiny.
“You do not flinch,” he said; “yet you too may be acting a part. Have you lured me on with shy defiance and pretty girlish conceits in order that you may count another victim?”
“I am profoundly sorry for you,” said the girl. “Your faith in human nature has received another shock.”
“Which does not add to my charms,” he said harshly, unhappily, and with some resentfulness. “You need not shrink from me. I’m not going to sit down beside you.”
“Which does add to your charms for me,” said the girl with great firmness; “and I am not shrinking from you but making a place for you.”