"No," she answered, "it isn't fair. That is why I sent for you."
He bit his lip, but faced her.
"Well," he said, "what is it?"
Steadily she met his renewed gaze until his eyes failed her.
Even then her own eyes, never wavering, could find in him not enough to determine her. The desire to get at the truth, whatever the truth might be, was plying its angry whip upon her shoulders. When Mary had spoken, Marian had received the intelligence as innocently imparted fact. But now the man before her gave nothing that her inexperience could set down as a sign of what she considered a great sin.
"Wesley," she began, leaning towards him, "the girl that told me this told it inadvertently. More than that, she did not even know that I had ever heard of you. She did not want to hurt you: she was grateful to you, because you had rescued her."
His intuition, then, had not failed him: it was Violet.
"Why," he smiled, his heart heavy with the fear of losing Marian's love, his lips still sparring for a more open lead, "I am afraid I'm no knight-errant, Marian, to go about rescuing damsels in distress." But he did not like the sound of the phrase, and, seeing that she liked it no better, he explained: "You surely remember how I feel about these poor women."
"But she said that your politics brought you into touch with the worst sort of them."
Marian paused there to give him another chance, but his only protest was: