“If I had been worldly wise,” she said, “I should never have danced my way to America through summer moonlight with you. If I had been wiser still, I should not now be an exile, my political guilt established, myself marked for destruction by a great European Power the instant I dare set foot on its soil.”
“I supposed your trouble to be political,” he nodded.
“Yes, it is.” She sighed, looked at him with a weary little smile. “But, Garry, I am not guilty of being what that nation believes me to be.”
“I am very sure of it,” he said gravely.
“Yes, you would be. You’d believe in me anyway, even with the terrible evidence against me.... I don’t suppose you’d think me guilty if I tell you that I am not—in spite of what they might say about me—might prove, apparently.”
She withdrew her hands, clasped them, her gaze lost in retrospection for a few moments. Then, coming to herself with a gesture of infinite weariness:
“There is no use, Garry. I should never be believed. There are those who, base enough to entrap me, now are preparing to destroy me because they are cowardly enough to be afraid of me while I am alive. Yes, trapped, exiled, utterly discredited as I am to-day, they are still afraid of me.”
“Who are you, Thessa?” he asked, deeply disturbed.
“I am what you first saw me—a dancer, Garry, and nothing worse.”
“It seems strange that a European Government should desire your destruction,” he said.