Harding made him a bow, and walked with rather sidling steps to the door. Tressady followed him to the landing, called to the butler, who was still up, and ceremoniously told him to get Mrs. Watton a cab. Then he walked back to the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him. "Letty!" His tone startled her. She looked round hastily. "Letty! you were defending me as I came in." He was extraordinarily pale--his blue eyes flashed. Every trace of the hauteur with which he had treated the Wattons had disappeared. Letty recovered herself in an instant. The moment he showed softness she became the tyrant. "Don't come!--don't touch me!" she said passionately, putting out her hand as he approached her. "If I defended you, it was just for decency's sake. You _have_ disgraced us both. It is perfectly true what Aunt Watton says. I don't suppose we shall ever get over it. Oh! don't try to bully me"--for Tressady had turned away with an impatient groan. "It's no use. I know you think me a little fool! _I'm_ not one of your great political ladies, who pretend to know everything that they may keep men dangling after them. I don't pose and play the hypocrite, as some--some people do. But, all the same, I know that you have done for yourself, and that people will say the most disgraceful things. Of course they will! And you can't deny them--you know you can't. Why did you never tell me a thing? _Who_ made you change over? Ah! you can't answer--or you won't!" Tressady was walking up and down with folded arms. He paused at her challenge. "Why didn't I tell you? Do you remember that I wanted to talk to you yesterday morning--that I suggested you should come and hear my speech--and you wouldn't have it? You didn't care about politics, you said, and weren't going to pretend.--What made me go over? Well--I changed my mind--to some extent," he said slowly. "To some extent?" She laughed scornfully, mimicking his voice. "_To some extent_! Are you going to try and make me believe there was nothing else?" "No. As I walked home to-night I determined not to conceal the truth from you. Opinions counted for something. I voted--yes, taking all things together, I think it may be said that I voted honestly. But I should never have taken the part I did but--" he hesitated, then went on deliberately--"but that I had come to have a strong--wish--to give Lady Maxwell her heart's desire. She has been my friend. I repaid her what I could." Letty, half beside herself, flung at him a shower of taunts hysterical and hardly intelligible. He showed no emotion. "Of course," he said disdainfully, "if you choose to repeat this to others you will do us both great damage. I suppose I can't help it. For anybody else in the world--for Mrs. Watton and her son, for instance--I have a perfectly good political defence, and I shall defend myself stoutly. I have no intention whatever of playing the penitent in public."