"Certainly I am—his confidential secretary."
"Good Lord! Confidential! Mixed up in all that underhand business—intrigues—who knows what devilry! In his pay! And why? When you have a good home, when mother is wanting you, and would give anything to have you back with her."
"Surely you know why, Ivor—not that your poor mother does. We try to keep the worst from her. The girls help a little—she thinks it is her own money. She can't realize how that has dwindled—and then my—pay is very good."
"O Lord! As bad as that! And if only—yes, I might have gone straight, I might—if only—if only you had given me a chance, a hope, had kept true to me!"
"True? I have always been the same to you. We have always been friends, Ivor, ever since we were such little things, playfellows, then companions. Always fond of each other—in that way—till now, when you reproach me and make other claims upon me."
"I should never have got into this mess if only you would have cared for me."
He knew this was untrue; but the Circean spell, working so strongly in his blood, darkened his brain and made him savage to her who had power to set him free.
"What nonsense, Ivor! Why should I care for you in that way? Anything of that kind was hateful to your mother; you know that she was always against it. Even if you had spoken out, she had other views for you. She trusted me, and told me, and you know it, Ivor. How could I, under her roof, eating her bread—how could I take her son from her and spoil her happiness?"
"Spoiling my happiness is nothing, of course. Yet she chose her husband. A man has a right to choose his wife."
"But you had not chosen me. She was not sure. She was only afraid of what might be if we were much together. You were so young, even if you had really cared——"