“And when you thought I was sending the necklace here you trumped up a flimsy excuse so that you might be able to steal in here and get it. Is that sort of thing in your code of friendship?”
“I wasn’t trying to trap you,” she explained. “I thought you were innocent, and I wanted to convince them of it, too.”
“No doubt,” he said tauntingly, “and when you found out I was guilty, you still tried to save me, I suppose, by asking me to walk into their trap?”
The girl made an effort to defend her course of action. She knew that without the admission of the truth he must feel his point of view unassailable, but she wanted him not to think too hardly of her.
“After all,” she declared, “you had broken the law. You are guilty. Why should my behavior be so called into account?”
“It isn’t that at all,” he returned impatiently. “You didn’t play the game fairly. You used a woman’s last weapon—her sex. Well, I can play your game, too, and I will. You shall stay here till morning.”
“You don’t dare to keep me!” she cried.
“Oh, yes, I do,” he retorted easily.
She assumed as well as she could an air of bravado, a false air of courage that might convince him she was not so easily frightened as she felt.
“And you think the possible loss of my reputation is going to frighten me into letting you go?”