"You mean you believe he hasn't done it? Then why are you going to see Kitty again? Oh, don't pretend to me! I tell you you're going to protect him. And why are you going to protect him? (Ah, I didn't think of that before, but I see it now!) You'll love him a little more still just for that! You'll love him because you have his safety in your hands. You'll keep it in your hands. Even if you have to take Kitty to live with you, so that you can watch her every spare moment, you'll take care she never, never knows. You're planning it now. You're going to have a right in that man no other woman on earth has, Evie Soames or anybody else. And you're going to take him from Evie Soames too, if you can!"
The other attempted irony. "What, me? With my story?"
"You only regret your story because it stands now in your way of getting him! Would you marry Roy now even if you could gain a kingdom by it? Why, you wouldn't before, let alone now! What are you going to see Kitty again for—to-morrow? We shall see! Your nerves are all a-jump at this moment; you don't feel it safe to leave here even for a few hours! And another thing. Miriam Levey seems to be at his place, wherever it is, and you're positively trembling about that! While you're trying to worm things out of Kitty on the one side, she'll be at the other—you know what she is! So the first thing you'll do will be to find out exactly what Kitty's got into her head."
But here the normal Louie temporarily triumphed. "What a tale you're making up!" she laughed. "These things simply do not happen. Actually, you're trying to force it on me that I love a man simply because he's committed a——"
"Not simply because——"
"Well, that I'm in love with a man who has committed one. Tell that to the world, and see how you're laughed at!... Oh no, it's too much. People don't do it, especially when it's guesswork, pure and simple——"
So she triumphed. The other Louie held her peace.
But for all that she went to see Kitty again on the morrow.
II
It was an error of judgment that caused Louie to leave the photographer's in Bond Street. The money she owed to Buck and Chaff was on her mind; she saw that Richenda Earle had been right; she was not yet out in the open. She sought to diminish her indebtedness by finding a better-paid post.