A flash of anger shook him at the thought. He said angrily:
“You may. I do not. I do not admit to you, to Bowden, or to the world that the woman who bears my name can be such a creature. That is the point.”
She sat down on the edge of a chair, checked at her first attempt, staring at the carpet, her lips compressed, her agile mind racing ahead, conscious of the cruel enjoyment with which he watched and waited.
“There is no use in going on,” he said, after a moment’s silence. “This interview is very painful to me.”
She made no answer, though her slender eyebrows came into a closer contraction which sent little furrows shooting over her forehead and brought drawn lines down to her lips. He did not insist. He was curious with the sense of some impending danger. Why had she come—the true, the final reason which would emerge at the end?
At this moment, she raised her eyes and fixed her glance on him in a long, penetrating stare.
“She has come to see if I am drinking myself to death.” The thought flashed over him. He smiled and said coldly: “Never fear—I shall hold out!”
Whatever the thought in her mind, she rose, glanced around the room, and her fingers closed over her throat as though overcome with emotion.
“It’s too frightful for words!” she said.
“What is?”