"'And you believed him?' she repeated with passionate intensity, her eyes burning bright, her teeth closing over the full red lip. 'Men always believe another man about a woman.'
"'No, not altogether,' I protested. 'But he said you told him lies.'
"She lay there looking at me for a while without speaking and then she got up slowly, yawned with a deliberate gesture of extreme gracefulness, and shrugged her shoulders.
"'And that's all it amounted to!' she remarked with a smile of disdain. 'He adored me, he said. Never, never would he forget. I was the only girl he ever really loved! He wanted me to marry him and live in that—that place you saw. And when I told him what my mother was, he nearly went mad, and wanted to kill me and commit suicide. Did he tell you that?'
"'No,' I admitted. 'He didn't become quite so confidential as that. But he accused you of faithlessness.'
"'Me! How could I be faithful to a lunatic? I had to run away from him. He wasn't safe....'
"'And what do you want me to do now?' I enquired. 'You must know, my dear, that I can't stay away from the ship. We sail in a week.'
"'Oh,' she said, coming up to me and putting her hands on my shoulders so that the warm perfume of her body assailed me. 'To be my friend. A girl in my position, Mr. Chief, she needs to have a friend. I thought—well, I was mistaken. I thought he would have been different, a clever man like him. But they are all the same, all the same.' And her hands dropped.
"'I said I'd be your friend,' I protested, 'but you didn't seem to think me worth while.'
"'Always,' she whispered, regarding me, 'never mind what happens?'