Her nerves were quivering like live things. She moved [61] ]toward the couch, dropped on it. “I—” she said at last haltingly—“I am not the woman you love.”
He looked across at her.
She went on without meeting his eyes. After the unconscious revelation she had given him during those moments when she thought herself alone, she could no more have stopped the confession that came now than she could have stopped her breath.
“I am not any of the things you think me—not one of them. I am not Russian—not foreign at all. I was born in Vermont of American parents. Up to the time I met Kane, my struggle for existence was in cheap vaudeville houses, not in Moscow. I’ve never had any lovers—”
“Well,” came with a low chuckle, “no man could object to that.”
She looked up. Her eyes met his, amazed. “You don’t understand. I am not Lisa Parsinova—there is no such person. I am Lizzie Parsons and I’ve imposed on you just as I’m imposing on the American public.”
“The American public asks chiefly to be charmed and interested. If you’re doing that for them, they don’t care whether you’re Yankee or Hindustani.”
She continued to stare at him, in bewildered fashion striving to interpret his nonchalance. “You—you can’t possibly understand,” she breathed at last. “Aren’t you surprised?”
“Not in the least. You see, I’ve been Kane’s backer for years. I was with him in the vaudeville house the [62] ]night he first saw you. As a matter of fact, I was the one who suggested to him that you’d be a winner on Broadway. Of course the foreign stuff was his. Any number of times I’ve watched him work with you from an adjoining room. You don’t know what pride I’ve felt in your success.”
“Then why, all these months, have you let me believe you were being fooled?”