She shook her head. “For worse.”
He looked at her reproachfully. “Oh, come now, Miss Cartwright, be fair!”
“In Paris you used to trust me,” she said.
“And you think I don’t now?” he returned.
“I’m quite sure you don’t,” she told him.
“Why do you say that?” Denby inquired.
“There are lots of things,” she answered. “One is that when I asked you why you were here in America, you put me off with some playful excuse about being just an idler.” She looked at him with a vivacious air.
“Now didn’t you really come over on an important mission?”
Poor Denby, who had been telling himself that Monty’s suspicions were without justification, and that this girl’s good faith could not be doubted even if several circumstances were beyond his power to explain, groaned inwardly. Here she was, trying, he felt certain, to gain his confidence to satisfy the men who were even now investing the house.
But he was far from giving in yet. How could she, one of Vernon Cartwright’s daughters, reared in an atmosphere wholly different from this sordid business, be engaged in trying to betray him?