Thurston again stroked his mustache, for a moment. "Yes," he presently said, "I should like to know that." A silence now ensued between them. Claire broke it. "He loved me," she said. "Which means that you did not care for him?" "Oh, yes. I cared very much. It was no worldly sale of myself. He was not even rich when I married him. He attracted me--in a manner charmed me. I felt that I should never meet another man who would attract and charm me more. Do you understand?" "Thoroughly.... Since then you have met Stuart Goldwin. I know him well. He is a man of exceptional fascination. They tell me that he is your slave." "Do they?" said Claire, coloring under this rapid attack of candor. "Well, if he is my slave--which I, of course, deny--then I am not his. They did not tell you that, I am sure. They did not even hint it." "No. You have escaped the least breath of scandal." "Be sure that I have. And I shall continue to escape it. I recollect that you once declared I was cold, and that my coldness would prove a safeguard. 'It is very protective to a woman,' you said." "Quote me in full or not at all," he corrected, with a grim pleasantry. "I said that it is very protective to a woman--while it lasts." "True," returned Claire. "And it _has_ lasted. I prophesied that it would last, and I was right.... By the way, from whom have you learned all these important items? Perhaps from your sister. She is not my friend." Thurston started a little. "She is not your enemy?" he said, putting the words as a distinct question. "I hope not. But I am by no means sure. Thus far she has held herself aloof from me. She has not openly opposed me, but she has behaved with telling reserve. Everybody else has paid me tribute, so to speak. No, I am wrong. There is one other woman--her cousin, Mrs. Lee." "Of course you know why poor Sylvia would be your foe. She is madly in love with Goldwin; she has been for years. You must have cost her dire pangs." Claire chose to ignore this last statement. "I think your sister dislikes me from pride," she said. "I mean pride of family." Here she paused for a moment, and seemed almost bashfully reluctant to proceed. But her hesitation had in it a gentle, unassuming modesty; it sprang wholly from unwillingness to touch on a subject which she knew that only the most delicate tact should deal with, if to deal with it at all were not folly and rashness. "Your sister found out," she softly continued, "that you had liked me enough to ask me to be your wife. Heaven knows, Beverley Thurston, that _I_ did not tell her!" Thurston looked very grave. "I told her," he said. "Or rather, she drew it from me. I was foolish to let her. Cornelia is so clever.... Well," he suddenly went on, with an unusual show of animation, "do you mean that she accused you of having rejected me?" "She did not put it in the form of an accusation. She stated it. Wait; I will tell you more; I will tell when, where, and how it all happened."