"I've meant to tell you for a long time," she went on; "I would have told you if Cardemon had ever sent for you to—to pose—in his place."
"He asked me to go on The Mohave."
"I'd have warned you if Louis Neville had not objected."
"Do you suppose Louis knew?"
"No. He scarcely knows Penrhyn Cardemon. His family and Cardemon are neighbours in the country, but the Nevilles and the Collises are snobs—I'm speaking plainly, Valerie—and they have no use for that red-faced, red-necked, stocky young millionaire."
Valerie sat thinking; Rita, nursing her knee, brooded under the bright tangle of her hair, linking and unlinking her fingers as she gently swayed her foot to and fro.
"That's how it is," she said at last. "Now you know."
Valerie's head was still lowered, but she raised her eyes and looked straight at Rita where she sat on the sofa's edge, carelessly swinging her foot to and fro.
"Was it—Penrhyn Cardemon?" she asked.
"Yes…. I thought it had killed any possibility of ever caring—that way—for any other man."