A moment later she heard his voice: “Miss Castleman.”
Panic seized her again, but she looked up, with her last flicker of courage. “Well?” she asked.
“There is something I want to tell you,” he began. “I can’t play this game with you—I am no match for you at all.”
“Why—what do you mean?” she managed to say.
As usual, she knew just what he meant. “I am not a man who can play with his emotions,” he said. “You must understand this at the very outset—the thing is real to me, and I’ve got to know quickly whether or not it is real to you.”
There he was! Like a storm of wind that threatened to sweep away her pretenses, the whole pitiful little structure of her coquetry. But she could not let the structure go; it was her only shelter, and she strove desperately to hold it in place. “Why should you assume that I play with my emotions?” she demanded.
“You play, not with your own, but with other peoples’ emotions,” he replied. “I know; I’ve heard about you—long ago.”
She drew herself up haughtily. “You do not approve of me, Mr. Shirley? I’m very sorry.”
“You must know—” he began.
But she went on, in a rush of defensive recklessness: “You think I’m hollow—a coquette—a trifler with hearts. Well, I am. It’s all I know.” She flung her head up, looking at him defiantly.