“Twenty thousand no good!” he jeered. “Think again, Miss Cartwright. It will pay you better to stand in with me than give me up.”
“No, no!” she cried, half hysterically.
“It’s all I can afford,” he said. Her manner seemed so strange, that for the first time since he had found her in his room, he began to doubt whether, after all, it was merely the splendid acting he had supposed.
“I can’t accept,” she told him. “I’ve got to get that necklace; it means more than any money to me.”
He looked at her keenly, seeking to gauge the depth of her emotion.
“Then they’ve got some hold on you,” he asserted.
“No,” she assured him, “I must get the necklace.”
“So you’re going to make me fight you then?” he questioned.
“I’ve got to fight,” she exclaimed.
“Look here,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “let’s get this thing right. You won’t accept any—shall we call it compromise?—and you won’t tell me for whom you are acting. And you won’t admit that you are doing this because someone has such a hold on you that you must obey. Is that right, so far?”