“But I don’t understand,” she said nervously.
“Don’t you?” he said, coming nearer and looking at her closely. “Don’t you understand that you are a beautiful woman and I am a man? Have you forgotten that it’s nearly three, and you are in my room, the room next which you begged to be moved? They were a little puzzled at your wanting that key so badly, and when you’re found here en negligée—for you will be found here—I think I know the world well enough to judge what construction will be placed upon that discovery.”
For the moment she forgot about everything but the personal aspect of the situation in which she found herself. That this man of all others should be willing to compromise her reputation awakened the bitterest contempt for him.
“I thought at least you were a man!” she cried.
“I am,” he returned without heat. “That’s just it, Miss Cartwright, I’m a man, and you are a woman.”
“And I thought you were my friend,” she exclaimed indignantly.
“Please don’t bandy the name of friendship with me,” he said with a sneer. “You of all women that live, to dare to talk like that! You knew I liked you—liked you very much, and because you were so sure of it, you wheedled me into betraying myself. You smiled and lied and pledged our friendship, and called to mind those days in Paris, which were the happiest recollections of all my life. And yet it was all done so that you might get enough out of me to lead me, with a prison sentence awaiting me, to the man who gives you your orders.” He took a few swift paces up and down the room. “This indignation of yours is a false note. We’ll keep to the main facts. You are sworn to betray me, and I am sworn to defeat you.”
“Don’t think that,” she said wretchedly; “I wasn’t—”
“And when I told you the truth,” he went on inexorably, “you asked me to go into the garden where they were waiting for me.”
“I couldn’t help it,” she said, as calmly as she was able.