And he began to walk up and down again. Chloris White sprang from her chair and stopped him by a violent grip of his arm. “How dare you say such things to me, you, who are the cause of it all!” George removed her hand from his arm and looked down at her sternly. “Madam, you are talking nonsense,” he said; “your daughter was perfectly happy with me; you set a mischievous rascal to work to get us into difficulties, to entice her away from me; and it is through no fault of yours that the scoundrel didn’t succeed in ruining her as he has done me. When you came in here just now you seemed human enough to be ashamed of yourself, and I said nothing to you. Now that you have overcome your shame, I have overcome my forbearance, and I tell you plainly you are the most corrupt, depraved and vile creature I ever met, and it would be better for Nouna to take shelter in a workhouse than in your home. Now you had better go, I cannot bear the sight of you.” The contemptuous brutality with which he shot these rough words at her and then turned away proved a far more effective mode of treatment than the courteous composure he had shown at the beginning of the interview; for self-restraint is a quality little understood or practised by women of her class and their companions. She at once became submissive and apologetic, rose and walked meekly towards the door. “I am sorry I intruded upon you; I thought you would like to hear what I knew about your wife; I will go.” George was immediately shocked at his own savagery, and without approaching or looking at her said he had not meant to be rude, his temper was not improved by confinement, and he should be very glad if she would tell him something--anything, only she must tell him nothing but the truth. “Yes, yes, I will tell you the truth indeed,” she said humbly, clasping her hands with restless impulsiveness, and recognising, with the shrewdness of long practice in the arts of pleasing men, that to relate bare facts was her best chance with this one. “She came to me five days ago--in the early morning--to my house in London. It was the day after she left you. The person who brought her----” “Rahas?” interrupted George sharply. “Yes, Rahas--had told her (I assure you he was not acting by my authority)----” “Go on, go on.” “Rahas had told her that you had come to me--that I was in Paris, that I was ready to help you (indeed, I should have been, I assure you).” George moved again brusquely, and Chloris hastened back to the facts. “He took her to an hotel, but Nouna mistrusted him, and insisted on remaining in the _fiacre_ while he went in to see if I was there. When he had gone in she jumped out of the cab, made inquiries of the proprietress, and found I had never been to the hotel at all. (You understand, Mr. Lauriston, that all this was without my sanction?)” “Perfectly,” said George, with the best accent of sincerity he could muster.