“I don’t know. I can’t tell you any more than I have, truly I can’t. If I find out, maybe I will some time. I promise to. But not now. I can’t, now. Can’t you trust me that much? Can’t you see that I like you, when I tell you so much? I haven’t any plan to injure you personally, truly I haven’t. I’m obliged to these people in one way and another, but nothing that would make me go that far. Won’t you believe me?” She opened her eyes very wide in injury. There was something new in her expression, a luring, coaxing something. “I haven’t any one who is really close to me any more,” she went on, “not anybody I like. I suppose it’s all my own fault, but--” her voice became very sweet. In spite of his precautions and the knowledge that his wife was the best and most suitable companion for him in the world, and that he was permanently fixed through his affection for his child and the helpful, hopeful mother of it, nevertheless he was moved by some peculiarity of this girl’s temperament. What power had Tilney over her, that he could use her in this way? Think of it--a beautiful girl like this! “What about Mrs. Skelton?” he demanded. “Who is she, anyhow? And these three gardeners around here? What is it they want?” (There were three gardeners of the grounds who whenever he and Imogene had been alone together anywhere managed somehow to be working near the scene--an arrival which caused him always instanter to depart.) “And Diamondberg?” She insisted that in so far as the gardeners were concerned she knew absolutely nothing about them. If they were employed by Mrs. Skelton or any one, it was without her knowledge. As for Diamondberg, she explained that she had only met him since she had come here, but that she really did not like him. For some reason Mrs. Skelton had asked her to appear not to know him. Mrs. Skelton, she persisted, had known her years before in Cincinnati, as she had said, but more recently in the city. She had helped her to get various positions, twice on the stage. Once she had worked for Mr. Swayne, yes, for a year, but only as a clerk. She had never known anything about him or his plans or schemes, never. When Gregory wanted to know how it was that he was to be trapped by her, if at all, she insisted that she did not believe that he was to be trapped. It was all to have been as she said. Gregory could not quite make out whether she was telling him the exact truth, but it was near enough, and it seemed to him that she could not be wholly lying. She seemed too frank and wishful. There was something sensuously affectionate in her point of view and her manner. He would know everything in the future, she insisted, if he wanted to, but only not now--please not now. Then she asked about his wife, where she was, when she was coming back. “Do you love her very much?” she finally asked naïvely. “Certainly I love her. Why do you ask? I’ve a two-year-old boy that I’m crazy about.”