"Am I not your mother-confessor?"
He seized her by the wrists. "Don't madden me! You're not really on
the Halls? You _are_ living here as governess. It is some prank, some
masquerade! Say it is!" He shook her. She tried to wrest her hands away.
"Not till you tell me the truth! You haven't been lying to me all these
months?"
A sudden remembrance came to give her strength and scorn. "I _have_ told
you the truth, only my letter crossed you on the ocean. When it returns
to England, you will see."
His grip relaxed, he staggered back. "Come," she said, pursuing her
unforeseen advantage. "We will talk this thing over quietly. I always
said you were in love with a shadow. But I find it was I who imagined a
Bayard."
"And what have I done and said worse than other men?" Again Master Harold
Lee Carter's complacent sentiment came to her. Men were all alike, only
their women folk didn't know.
"Worse than other men!" She laughed bitterly. "I wanted you better--all
the seven heavens better--saint as well as hero, with no thought but for
me, and no one before me or after me. Oh, yes, it sounds a large order,
but that's what we women want. Don't speak! I know what you're going to
say. Skip me. Talk of yourself."
"You get what you want. The other's only make-believe. It passes like
water from a duck's back. You women don't understand. The white fire of
your purity cleanses us, and that is why we will have nothing less--"
"Ah, now you have skipped _to_ me. I'm not pretending there isn't an evil
spirit in me to match yours. It split away from me and became Nelly
O'Neill. You asked which I was? I am both. Here, I am a respectable
governess. Let me ring for Mrs. Lee Carter. She'll give you my character.
The white fire and all that." She pressed the bell.
"Don't be so absurd. Give me time to collect my senses."
"All right, pick up the pieces, while I collect these." She stooped over
the bits of glass.
"But for Heaven's sake don't bring that woman into it--"