“No, no,” she interrupted; “I don’t really mind cigars—and the windows are wide open. Besides, I came for only a moment—just to say——”
As she cast about for words to carry her on, I drew up a chair for her. She looked at it uncertainly, seated herself. “When mamma was here—this afternoon,” she went on, “she was urging me to—to do what she wished. And after she had used several arguments, without changing me—she said something I—I’ve been thinking it over, and it seemed I ought in fairness to tell you.”
I waited.
“She said: ‘In a few days more he’—that meant you—‘he will be ruined. He imagines the worst is over for him, when in fact they’ve only begun.’”
“They!” I repeated. “Who are ‘they’? The Langdons?”
“I think so,” she replied, with an effort. “She did not say—I’ve told you her exact words—as far as I can.”
“Well,” said I, “and why didn’t you go?”
She pressed her lips firmly together. Finally, with a straight look into my eyes, she replied: “I shall not discuss that. You probably misunderstand, but that is your own affair.”
“You believed what she said about me, of course,” said I.
“I neither believed nor disbelieved,” she answered, indifferently, as she rose to go. “It does not interest me.”