"Everything is wrong with her," flashed Eurydice, ignoring his outstretched hand; "but she doesn't know I've come to talk to you about it. She'd never forgive me if she did. So if I say anything you don't like, you can revenge yourself on me by telling her. I haven't come to be kind, as you call it. I care far too much for the truth."
"Still, you may as well sit down," said Julian, drawing a chair toward her with his free hand. "The truth is quite compatible with a wicker arm-chair. You needn't lean back in it if you're afraid of relaxing your moral fiber.
"As to revenge, I always choose my own, and even if you make it necessary, I don't suppose it will include your sister. What you suggest would have the disadvantage of doing that, wouldn't it? I mean the disadvantage to me. It hasn't struck you apparently as a disadvantage that you are acting disloyally toward your sister in doing what you know she would dislike."
Eurydice flung back her head and stared at him. She accepted the edge of the wicker arm-chair provisionally. Her eyes traveled relentlessly over Julian. She took in, and let him see that she took in, the full extent of his injury; but she spared him pity. She looked as if she were annoyed with him for having injuries.
"What I'm doing," she said, "is my business, not yours. It mightn't please Stella,—I must take the risk of that,—but if it saves her from you, it will be worth it."
Julian bowed; his eyes sparkled. An enemy struck him as preferable to a secret doubt.
"I didn't know," she said after a slight pause which Julian did nothing to relieve, "that you were as badly hurt as you appear to be. It makes it harder for me to talk to you as freely as I had intended."
"I assure you," said Julian, smiling, "that you need have no such scruples. My incapacities are local, and I can stand a long tongue as well as most men, even if I like it as little."
"I thought you would be insolent, and you are insolent," said Eurydice, with gloomy satisfaction. "That was one of the things I said to Stella."
Julian leaned forward, and for a moment his frosty, blue eyes softened as he looked at her.