“And the only thing I’ve taken,” I went on, “is the food I ate and the
wine I drank; but if you knew how much I needed them—”
“Were you hungry?”
“I hadn’t eaten anything for two days, and very little for two days
before that.”
“Then you’re not—you’re not one of those gentleman burglars who do this
sort of thing out of bravado?”
“As we see in novels or plays. I don’t think you’ll find many of them
about. I’m a burglar,” I pursued, “or I—I meant to be one—but I’m not a
gentleman.”
“You speak like a gentleman.”
“Unfortunately, a gentleman is not made by speech. A gentleman could
never be in the predicament in which you’ve caught me.”
“Well, then, you were a gentleman once.”
“My father was a gentleman—and is.”
“English?”
“I’d rather not tell you. Now that I’ve restored the things, if you’ll
give me your word that I sha’n’t be molested I shall—”
“You sha’n’t be molested, only—”
As she hesitated I insisted, “Only what, may I ask?”
Her manner was a mixture of embarrassment and pity. She had not hitherto
taken her eyes from me since we had begun to speak. Now she let them
wander away; or, rather, she let them shift away, to return to me
swiftly, as if she couldn’t trust me without watching me. By this time
she was trembling so violently, too, that she was obliged to grasp the
back of a chair to steady herself. She was too little to be tall, and
yet too tall to be considered little. The filmy thing she wore, with its
long, loose sleeves, gave her some of the appearance of an angel, only
that no angel ever had this bright, almost hectic color in the cheeks,
and these scarlet lips.
“Was it,” she asked, speaking, as we both did, in low tones, and
rapidly—“was it because you—you had no money that you did this?”