"I am doing a very unusual thing in coming to see you," she said, "but
you have forced me to it, and I am quite helpless."
A faint sound came from him, and she was aware that he was leaning
forward to see her face, so she dropped her eyes, partly to let him look
at her, and partly to avoid meeting his gaze.
"I heard your speech in the piazza this morning. It would be useless to
disguise the fact that some of its references were meant for me."
He did not speak, and she played with the glove in her lap, and
continued in the same soft voice: "If I were a man, I suppose I should challenge you. Being a woman, I can
only come to you and tell you that you are wrong."
"Wrong?"
"Cruelly, terribly, shamefully wrong."
"You mean to tell me...."
He was stammering in a husky voice, and she said quite calmly: "I mean to tell you that in substance and in fact what you implied was
false."
There was a dry glitter in her eyes which she tried to subdue, for she
knew that he was looking at her still.
"If ... if...."--his voice was thick and indistinct--"if you tell me that
I have done you an injury...."
"You have--a terrible injury."
She could hear his breathing, but she dared not look up, lest he should
see something in her face.
"Perhaps you think it strange," she said, "that I should ask you to
accept my assurance only. But though you have done me a great wrong I
believe you will accept it."
"If ... if you give me your solemn word of honour that what I said--what
I implied--was false, that rumour and report have slandered you, that it
is all a cruel and baseless calumny...."
She raised her head, looked him full in the face.
"I do give it," she said.
"Then I believe you," he answered. "With all my heart and soul, I
believe you."
She dropped her eyes again, and turning with her thumb an opal ring on
her finger, she began to use the blandishments which had never failed
with other men.
"I do not say that I am altogether without blame," she said. "I may have
lived a thoughtless life amid scenes of poverty and sorrow. If so,
perhaps it has been partly the fault of the men about me. When is a
woman anything but what the men around have made her?"