"If I ask for your sympathy?"
"Not if you ask it for yourself, Louis. But if you include that—"
"Please, dear!" he interrupted, checking her with a slight gesture—for an instant only; then she went on in a determined voice:
"Louis, I might as well tell you at once that I have no sympathy for her. I wrote to her, out of sheer kindness, for her own good—and she replied so insolently that—that I am not yet perfectly recovered—"
"What did you write?"
Mrs. Collis remained disdainfully silent, but her eyes sparkled.
"Won't you tell me," he asked, patiently, "what it was you wrote to
Valerie West?"
"Yes, I'll tell you if you insist on knowing!—even if you do misconstrue it! I wrote to her—for her own sake—and to avoid ill-natured comment,—suggesting that she be seen less frequently with you in public. I wrote as nicely, as kindly, as delicately as I knew how. And her reply was a practical request that I mind my business!… Which was vulgar and outrageous, considering that she had given me her promise—" Mrs. Collis checked herself in her headlong and indignant complaint; then she coloured painfully, but her mouth settled into tight, uncompromising lines.
"What promise had Valerie West made you?" he asked, resolutely subduing his amazement and irritation.
For a moment Mrs. Collis hesitated; then, realising that matters had gone too far for concealment, she answered almost violently: