“I suppose not. Still, self-pity is the very ecstasy of grief, they tell me.”
“For girls and halfling boys, I dare say.”
There he sat cocked on the table, a picture of smiling ease, raffish and fascinating, as full of sentimental sympathy as a lass in her teens. His commiseration was no less plain to me because it was hidden under a debonair manner. He looked at me in a sidelong fashion with a question in his eyes.
“Speak out!” I told him. “Your interest in me as evidenced by this visit has earned the right to satisfy your curiosity.”
“I dare swear you have had your chance to save yourself?” he asked.
“Oh, the usual offer! A life for a life, the opportunity to save myself by betraying others.”
“Do you never dally with the thought of it?” he questioned.
I looked up quickly at him. A hundred times I had nursed the temptation and put it from me.
“Are you never afraid, Montagu, when the night falls black and slumber is not to be wooed?”
“Many a time,” I told him, smiling.