“Well?” he inquired after a time.
“Oh, I wish you wouldn’t turn on me so and leave me,” she pleaded. “I haven’t done anything to you, have I? Not yet, anyhow.”
“That’s just the point—not yet. There’s the whole story in a nutshell.”
“Yes, but I promise you faithfully that I won’t, that I don’t intend to. Really I don’t. You won’t believe me, but that’s true. And I won’t, I give you my word,—truly. Why won’t you still be friends with me? I can’t tell you any more about myself now than I have—not now—but I will some time, and I wish you would still be friends with me. I promise not to do anything to cause you trouble. I haven’t really, have I? Have I?”
“How should I know?” he answered testily and roughly, the while believing that this was a deliberate attempt on her part to interest him in spite of himself, to get him not to leave yet. “It seems to me you’ve done enough, being with these people. You’ve led me into going about with them, for one thing. I would never have gone with them on most of these trips except for you. Isn’t that enough? What more do you want? And why can’t you tell me now,” he demanded, feeling in a way the authority of a victor, “who these people are and all about them? I’d like to know. It might be a help to me, if you really wanted to do something for me. What are their plans, their game?”
“I don’t know. I can’t tell you any more than I have, truly I can’t. If I find out, maybe I will some time. I promise to. But not now. I can’t, now. Can’t you trust me that much? Can’t you see that I like you, when I tell you so much? I haven’t any plan to injure you personally, truly I haven’t. I’m obliged to these people in one way and another, but nothing that would make me go that far. Won’t you believe me?” She opened her eyes very wide in injury. There was something new in her expression, a luring, coaxing something.
“I haven’t any one who is really close to me any more,” she went on, “not anybody I like. I suppose it’s all my own fault, but—” her voice became very sweet.
In spite of his precautions and the knowledge that his wife was the best and most suitable companion for him in the world, and that he was permanently fixed through his affection for his child and the helpful, hopeful mother of it, nevertheless he was moved by some peculiarity of this girl’s temperament. What power had Tilney over her, that he could use her in this way? Think of it—a beautiful girl like this!
“What about Mrs. Skelton?” he demanded. “Who is she, anyhow? And these three gardeners around here? What is it they want?” (There were three gardeners of the grounds who whenever he and Imogene had been alone together anywhere managed somehow to be working near the scene—an arrival which caused him always instanter to depart.) “And Diamondberg?”
She insisted that in so far as the gardeners were concerned she knew absolutely nothing about them. If they were employed by Mrs. Skelton or any one, it was without her knowledge. As for Diamondberg, she explained that she had only met him since she had come here, but that she really did not like him. For some reason Mrs. Skelton had asked her to appear not to know him. Mrs. Skelton, she persisted, had known her years before in Cincinnati, as she had said, but more recently in the city. She had helped her to get various positions, twice on the stage. Once she had worked for Mr. Swayne, yes, for a year, but only as a clerk. She had never known anything about him or his plans or schemes, never. When Gregory wanted to know how it was that he was to be trapped by her, if at all, she insisted that she did not believe that he was to be trapped. It was all to have been as she said.