His touch fell compassionately on her shoulder. "Poor child--don't," he said.
Their eyes met, but his expression checked the smile breaking through her tears. "Don't you see," he continued, "that we've got to have this thing out?"
She continued to stare at him through a prism of tears. "I can't--while you stand up like that," she stammered, childishly.
She had cowered down again into a corner of the lounge; but Lansing did not seat himself at her side. He took a chair facing her, like a caller on the farther side of a stately tea-tray. "Will that do?" he asked with a stiff smile, as if to humour her.
"Nothing will do--as long as you're not you!"
"Not me?"
She shook her head wearily. "What's the use? You accept things theoretically--and then when they happen...."
"What things? What has happened!"
A sudden impatience mastered her. What did he suppose, after all--? "But you know all about Ellie. We used to talk about her often enough in old times," she said.
"Ellie and young Davenant?"
"Young Davenant; or the others...."
"Or the others. But what business was it of ours?"
"Ah, that's just what I think!" she cried, springing up with an explosion of relief. Lansing stood up also, but there was no answering light in his face.
"We're outside of all that; we've nothing to do with it, have we?" he pursued.
"Nothing whatever."
"Then what on earth is the meaning of Ellie's gratitude? Gratitude for what we've done about some letters--and about Vanderlyn?"
"Oh, not you," Susy cried, involuntarily.
"Not I? Then you?" He came close and took her by the wrist. "Answer me. Have you been mixed up in some dirty business of Ellie's?"
There was a pause. She found it impossible to speak, with that burning grasp on the wrist where the bangle had been. At length he let her go and moved away. "Answer," he repeated.
"I've told you it was my business and not yours."
He received this in silence; then he questioned: "You've been sending letters for her, I suppose? To whom?"
"Oh, why do you torment me? Nelson was not supposed to know that she'd been away. She left me the letters to post to him once a week. I found them here the night we arrived.... It was the price--for this. Oh, Nick, say it's been worth it-say at least that it's been worth it!" she implored him.