“You have lied to me,” Zelda repeated in the same passionless voice, speaking as though she were saying some commonplace thing. “I understand perfectly well why you wish to continue this trusteeship. I shall be very glad to do what you ask; only we must understand each other frankly. You must tell me the truth.”
He shrank down slowly into his chair, but his eyes did not leave her face. His hands had ceased trembling, and he was quite himself.
“You don’t know,—you can’t know the enormity of what you are saying, Zee. It must be some horrible joke.” He drew his hand across his eyes as though to dispel a vision. “I have dealt with you generously, considerately,—and this—you can not mean what you say.”
He waited as though he expected some word of contrition; but she still stood with her eyes fastened on him, and there was no kindness in them.
“I have sought your own good. I have supposed you would be gratified to continue—the trust—reposed in me—by your mother.”
“If you speak to me of my mother again I shall find some way of punishing you,” she said, and there was still no passion in her voice.
“I suppose that when you are ready you will tell me what this means—why you have turned against me in this way,” he began with a simulation of anger. And then changing to a conciliatory tone: “Tell me what it is that troubles you, Zee. I had hoped that you were very happy here. I had flattered myself through the summer that ours was a happy home. But if there is any way in which I have erred I am heartily sorry.”
He bowed his head as though from the weight of his penitence, but he was glad to escape her eyes. When he looked up again, he found her gaze still bent upon him. He picked up the fallen pen and placed it on the table beside the paper which he had asked her to sign.
“You are a tremendous fraud,” she said, with a smile in which there was no mirth or pity. “You are immensely clever, and I suppose that because I have some of your evil blood in me, I am a little bit clever, too.”
He rose in real anger and cried hoarsely: