“But I don’t want you to,” she cried eagerly, so eagerly, that he groaned to think her magnificent acting should be devoted to such a scene as this. “I don’t want you to.”
“Then there’s only one way out of it for both of us,” he said, coming nearer.
“What?” she asked fervently.
“Tell them you’ve failed, that you couldn’t find it anywhere.”
“I couldn’t,” she said vehemently.
There was a certain studied contempt in his manner which hurt her badly. And to know that he would always regard her as an adventuress, unprincipled and ready to sell herself for the rewards of espionage, and never have even one pleasant and genuine memory of her, made her desperate.
“I didn’t intend you to lose on the transaction,” he said coldly. “I’ll give you ten thousand dollars.”
“Oh, no, no!” she cried, “you don’t understand.”
“Twenty thousand, then,” he said. “Only you and I would know. Your principals could never hold it against you. Isn’t it a good offer?”
She made a gesture of despair. “It’s no good.”