“What are the charges?” she asked valiantly and without the flippancy with which she had thought fit to characterize all her previous remarks.
“Wait!” he said, and she gave a little frightened cry, and clutched his arm.
“What are you going to do, Mortimer?”
“I am going to look at your face while you sit there and lie to me!” he said, striking a match, and lighting the gas. It showed her countenance frightened and pale, his reddish and set. Even in her agitation she was struck by the expression he had used. It was the second time she had been taxed with the mendacious habit. She began to think there was something in it. It was, however, the first time Mortimer had permitted himself to allude to it so roundly. She was nonplussed by his attitude; she had expected him to bluster and be ridiculous. He was dignified even to a tragedy. The thought crossed her mind that he still loved her, which would make it difficult for him to adopt the point of view she was intending to put before him.
“Mortimer,” she said, raising her eyes to his with an intentional effect of extreme and businesslike candour, “what Aunt Poynder tells you she saw she did see, but the inferences she draws are false.”
“Explain yourself more clearly.”
“I mean”—she strictly persevered in her steadfast gaze—“that it is not true that I have been unfaithful to you.”
“Not——!”
“I swear it,” she said simply, “but I do not expect you to believe me. Are you going to divorce me?”
“What—and leave you free to run off and join your lover!” roared Mortimer in a spasm of jealous rage. “I’m——”