"Your patient!" said Mollie, turning the flashing light of her great blue eyes full upon him.
The man laughed.
"I had to invent a little fable for these good people. Didn't you notice they looked rather afraid of you? Of course you did. Well, my dear Mollie, they think you're mad."
"Mad?"
"Exactly. You are, a little, you know. They think you've come here under medical orders to recruit by the sea-shore. I told them so. One hate's to tell lies, but, unfortunately, white ones are indispensable at times."
The blue eyes shone full upon him, blazing with magnificent disdain.
"You are a poorer creature than even I took you to be, and you have acted a mean and dastardly part from the first—the part of a schemer and a coward. Pray, let me see the face of our modern Knight of Romance."
Old Sally had hobbled from the room and they stood alone, half the width of the apartment between them.
"Hard words, my pretty one! You forget it was all for love of you. I didn't want to see you the wife of an old dotard you didn't care a fillip for."
"So, to mend matters, you've made me the wife of a scoundrel. I must forever hate and despise—yourself."