"Then do." "It was about that girl." She sat upright and looked at him for encouragement. He nodded. She went on: "He said that if I asked you, you would not dare deny you were--were--giving her money." "Her and her father." She shrank, startled. Then her lips smiled bravely, and she said, "He didn't say anything about her father." "No. That was my own correction of his story." She looked at him with wonder and doubt. "You aren't--_doing_ it, Fred!" she exclaimed. He nodded. "Yes, indeed." He looked at her placidly. "Why not?" "You are _supporting_ her?" "If you wish to put it that way," said he carelessly. "My money pays the bills--all the bills." "Fred!" "Yes? What is it? Why are you so agitated?" He studied her face, then rose, took a final pull at the cigarette, tossed it in the fire. "I must be going," he said, in a cool, even voice. She started up in a panic. "Fred! What do you mean? Are you angry with me?" His calm regard met hers. "I do not like--this sort of thing," he said. "But surely you'll explain. Surely I'm entitled to an explanation." "Why should I explain? You have evidently found an explanation that satisfies you." He drew himself up in a quiet gesture of haughtiness. "Besides, it has never been my habit to allow myself to be questioned or to explain myself." Her eyes widened with terror. "Fred!" she gasped. "What _do_ you mean?" "Precisely what I say," said he, in the same cool, inevitable way. "A man came to you with a story about me. You listened. A sufficient answer to the story was that I am marrying you. That answer apparently does not content you. Very well. I shall make no other." She gazed at him uncertainly. She felt him going--and going finally. She seized him with desperate fingers, cried: "I _am_ content. Oh, Fred--don't frighten me this way!" He smiled satirically. "Are you afraid of the scandal--because everything for the wedding has gone so far?" "How can you think that!" cried she--perhaps too vigorously, a woman would have thought. "What else is there for me to think? You certainly haven't shown any consideration for me." "But you told me yourself that you were false to me." "Really? When?" She forgot her fear in a gush of rage rising from sudden realization of what she was doing--of how leniently and weakly and without pride she was dealing with this man. "Didn't you admit----" "Pardon me," said he, and his manner might well have calmed the wildest tempest of anger. "I did not admit. I never admit. I leave that to people of the sort who explain and excuse and apologize. I simply told you I was paying the expenses of a family named Hallowell." "But _why_ should you do it, Fred?" His smile was gently satirical. "I thought Tetlow told you why." "I don't believe him!" "Then why this excitement?"