Violet was recovering herself fast. The colour had come back into her cheeks. She looked at him admiringly.
“You seem to know something of my delightful sex,” she said, with a faint smile. Then, after a pause, she added, “And you want to drive a bargain with me, don’t you, in return for not denouncing me?”
Moreno assented. “You are quite right. You say you now don’t desire the removal of Rossett. To be quite frank, no more do I.”
She looked at him sharply out of her tear-dimmed eyes, red and swollen with the violent weeping of a few seconds ago.
“But why do you wish to spare Guy Rossett? You say you are a true son of the Revolution.”
“I am,” replied Moreno composedly. “I am with certain reservations.” He felt he could not trust her too implicitly yet. “When they attack the Heads, the great ones of the earth, I am in the heartiest sympathy with them—that is the way to obtain our ends. But I draw the line at making martyrs of the small fry, the mere instruments, the humble tools of the despotic system. I think it brings justly deserved odium on us. To remove an inoffensive person like Rossett is worse than a crime, it is a blunder. If the great Revolution is coming, how can a feeble person like him stop its impetuous course?”
Violet Hargrave listened attentively. When was he going to suggest the terms of the bargain?
“Will you help me to save young Rossett? It is the price of my silence. You can do nothing against me. Whatever innuendos or suggestions you might make, if such occur to you, would not weigh a moment against the damning evidence in my possession. They would only regard it as the frantic action of a guilty woman, trying to save herself from their vengeance.”
He thought it wise to rub this in. He did not believe she was very clever, but she was cunning. He wanted to divert her from any idea of attempting to readjust the situation to her own advantage.
“You show me very plainly you don’t trust me, by that somewhat unnecessary warning,” she said a little bitterly. She was hardened enough, heaven knows, but the distrust of the man she had grown to care for hurt her more than she liked to admit.