He was sorry for her; he must not be sorry. She tried to laugh.
"Don't think of me," she said. "It—it didn't matter. After all, I'm an actress. I am one of these strange people that can pretend. Let me go back to the other kind of acting, where nobody will think me real; where there will be crowds applauding, and not just one person to be amused and say—'She carries it off well, but she'll make a slip,—she will stumble!' ... Oh, it couldn't hurt me. Don't you know we can only hurt ourselves?"
"Do you think I'll let you go back to that life?" he said.
His voice recalled the raging warmth of pity with which he had once referred to his lawyer's tale of her plight. Apparently the situation still roused in him a mistaken feeling that she was in his charge. She flushed, struggling with a betraying weakness.
"A hard life," she said, "but not unbearable.... My public will not be cheated. They will not shame me with too much kindness——"
Barnaby was not listening.
"Who was the man,—that fellow last night?" he said.
Why did he speak of that? Did he dare to imagine that she was building on another man's promises? that she was scheming, calculating—?
"No,—" she cried bitterly. "No,—not that!"
A great while after, it seemed to her, he spoke again. His voice was quiet.