"Yes, you did. Why not say it to me? You mean that you, and others, have heard rumours. You mean that you, unlike others, are trying to make me understand that you are still loyal to me. Is that it?"
"Y-yes. Good Lord! Loyal! Why, of course I am. Why, you didn't suppose I'd be anything else, did you?"
She opened her pallid lips to speak and could not.
"Loyal!" he repeated indignantly. "There's no merit in that when a man's been in love with a girl all his life and didn't know it until she'd got good and tired of him! You know I'm for you every time, Sylvia; what's the game in pretending you didn't know it?"
"No game.... I didn't—know it."
"Well, you do now, don't you?"
Her face was colourless as marble. She said, looking at him: "Suppose the rumour is true?"
His face flamed: "You don't know what you are saying!" he retorted, horrified.
"Suppose it is true?"
"Sylvia—for Heaven's sake——"