He stood looking at her with an amused, half scornful expression.
"Hate is too strong a word"--he answered--"She isn't worth hating!"
Her brows contracted in a frown.
"I do not believe THAT!"--she said--"You are not speaking truly. More likely it is, I think, you love her!"
He caught her roughly by the arm.
"Stop that!" he exclaimed, angrily--"You are foolish and insolent! Whether I love or hate anybody or anything is no affair of yours! How dare you speak to me as if it were!"
She shrank away from him. Her lips quivered, and tears welled through her lashes.
"Forgive me! ... oh, forgive!" she murmured, pleadingly--"I am sorry!..."
"So you ought to be!" he retorted--"You--Manella--imagine yourself in love with me ... yes, you do!--and you cannot leave me alone! No amorous man ever cadged round for love as much or as shamelessly as an amorous woman! Then you see another woman on the scene, and though she's nothing but a stray visitor at the Plaza where you help wash up the plates and dishes, you suddenly conceive a lot of romantic foolery in your head and imagine me to be mysteriously connected with her! Oh, for God's sake don't cry! It's the most awful bore! There's nothing to cry for. You've set me up like a sort of doll in a shrine and you want to worship me--well!--I simply won't be worshipped. As for your 'little wonderful white woman sweetly perfumed like a rose,' I don't mind saying that I know her. And I don't mind also telling you that she came up the hill last night to ferret me out."
Step by step Manella drew nearer, her eyes blazing.
"She went to see you?--She did THAT!--In the darkness?--like a thief or a serpent!"
He laughed aloud.
"No thief and no serpent in it!" he said--"And no darkness, but in the full light of the moon! Such a moon it was, too! A regular stage moon! A perfect setting for such an actress, in her white gown and her rope of gold hair! Yes--it was very well planned!--effective in its way, though it left me cold!"
"Ah, but it did NOT leave you cold!" cried Manella; "Else you would not have come down to see her to-day! You say she went 'to ferret you out'--"
"Of course she did"--he interrupted her--"She would ferret out any man she wanted for the moment. Forests could not hide him,--caves could not cover him if she made up her mind to find him. I had hoped she would not find ME--but she has--however,--you say she has gone--"