“You wouldn’t have me leave him here, would you, to walk in?”
“It might be interesting to know just what she was doing away out here in a storm like this, with a man following her.”
“Well, that’s about as broad as it is long. I don’t believe we’d better go into that! She’s a simple little girl from the country and our world is a big dark mystery to her; very likely she’s speculating as to what you and I are doing here in a snow-storm, with all the evidences of a quiet little party—to say nothing of the whiskey bottle and all the glasses full?”
He spread his hands over the table, which was not eloquent of abstinence.
“It looks like the merriest kind of an orgy, doesn’t it? And it’s all my fault—every bit of it. No matter what they say, it simply does not pay to be good! Here’s a whole quart of the best rye in the world, used merely to demonstrate my own powers of resistance. There isn’t a man in the whole State of Pennsylvania who would believe me if I swore I had poured out whiskey just to smell it.”
His hand touched one of the filled glasses; he raised it high and looked at it with a fierce craving in his eyes; then slowly very slowly, without taking his eyes from it, he put it down. She had watched him in silence, wondering; but he continued in his light, bantering tone. “As I was saying, it’s all my fault. I’m guilty on all counts of the indictment. You were a perfectly helpless woman in the hands of a monster. I’m sorry, Addie; I’m just as penitent as can be; and I’m going to get you out of the scrape as fast as I can. I’ll take the whole burden of it—explanations, lies, everything! Now be a good girl, won’t you, and don’t let everybody know you’re angry—though you are charming when you’re ruffled.”
He had persuaded her to a more amiable humour when Miss Morley returned, and she met the girl and led her to the fire with solicitous murmurs.
“We can go at once now, Wayne, can’t we?”
“The car awaits your pleasure, ladies!”
“But please don’t trouble about me,” cried Jean. “It’s only a little way to Rosedale Heights and I can take the train there and be home in half an hour.”