At this, George pushed back his chair. “Where—where? Don’t you believe me? Do you want to go and ask him if it’s true? What is the matter with you, anyway? What are you up to? Have you put yourself into my hands, or not?” A certain manly indignation was now kindled in his breast; he was equally angry with Roger, with Nora, and with himself; fate had offered him an overdose of contumely, and he felt a reckless, savage impulse to wring from the occasion that compliment to his power which had been so rudely denied to his delicacy. “Are you using me simply as a vulgar tool? Don’t you care for me the least little bit? Let me suggest that for a girl in your—your ambiguous position, you are several shades too proud. Don’t go back to Roger in a hurry! You are not the immaculate young person you were but two short days ago. Who am I, what am I, to the people whose opinion you care for? A very low fellow, my dear; and yet, in the eyes of the world, you have certainly taken up with me. If you are not prepared to do more, you should have done less. Nora, Nora,” he went on, breaking into a vein none the less revolting for being more ardent, “I confess I don’t understand you! But the more you puzzle me the more you fascinate me; and the less you like me the more I love you. What has there been, anyway, between you and Lawrence? Hang me if I can understand! Are you an angel of purity, or are you the most audacious of flirts?” She had risen before he had gone far. “Spare me,” she said, “the necessity of hearing your opinions or answering your questions. Please be a gentleman! Tell me, I once more beg of you, where Roger is to be found?” “Be a gentleman!” was a galling touch. He placed himself before the door. “I refuse the information,” he said. “I don’t mean to have been played with, to have been buffeted hither by Roger and thither by you! I mean to make something out of all this. I mean to request you to remain quietly in this room. Mrs. Paul will keep you company. You didn’t treat her over well, yesterday; but, in her way, she is quite as strong as you. Meanwhile I shall go to our friend. ‘She’s locked up tight,’ I will say; ‘she’s as good as in jail. Give me five thousand dollars and I’ll let her out.’ Of course he will begin to talk about legal proceedings. Then I will tell him that he is welcome to take legal proceedings if he doesn’t mind the exposure. The exposure won’t be pleasant for you, Nora, you know; for the public takes things in the lump. It won’t hurt me!” “Heaven forgive you!” murmured Nora, for all response to this explosion. It made a hideous whirl about her; but she felt that to advance in the face of it was her best safety. It sickened rather than frightened her. She went to the door. “Let me pass!” she said.