“The truth that you and I had never—­”

“Had never—­never in all these years!  Oh, she knew why—­she measured us both in a flash.  She didn’t suspect me of having haggled with you—­her words pelted me like hail.  ’He just took what he wanted—­sifted and sorted you to suit his taste.  Burnt out the gold and left a heap of cinders.  And you let him—­you let yourself be cut in bits’—­she mixed her metaphors a little—­’be cut in bits, and used or discarded, while all the while every drop of blood in you belonged to him!  But he’s Shylock—­and you have bled to death of the pound of flesh he has cut out of you.’  But she despises me the most, you know—­far the most—­” Mrs. Vervain ended.

The words fell strangely on the scented stillness of the room:  they seemed out of harmony with its setting of afternoon intimacy, the kind of intimacy on which at any moment, a visitor might intrude without perceptibly lowering the atmosphere.  It was as though a grand opera-singer had strained the acoustics of a private music-room.

Thursdale stood up, facing his hostess.  Half the room was between them, but they seemed to stare close at each other now that the veils of reticence and ambiguity had fallen.

His first words were characteristic.  “She does despise me, then?” he exclaimed.

“She thinks the pound of flesh you took was a little too near the heart.”

He was excessively pale.  “Please tell me exactly what she said of me.”

“She did not speak much of you:  she is proud.  But I gather that while she understands love or indifference, her eyes have never been opened to the many intermediate shades of feeling.  At any rate, she expressed an unwillingness to be taken with reservations—­she thinks you would have loved her better if you had loved some one else first.  The point of view is original—­she insists on a man with a past!”

“Oh, a past—­if she’s serious—­I could rake up a past!” he said with a laugh.

“So I suggested:  but she has her eyes on his particular portion of it.  She insists on making it a test case.  She wanted to know what you had done to me; and before I could guess her drift I blundered into telling her.”

Thursdale drew a difficult breath.  “I never supposed—­your revenge is complete,” he said slowly.

He heard a little gasp in her throat.  “My revenge?  When I sent for you to warn you—­to save you from being surprised as I was surprised?”

“You’re very good—­but it’s rather late to talk of saving me.”  He held out his hand in the mechanical gesture of leave-taking.

“How you must care!—­for I never saw you so dull,” was her answer.  “Don’t you see that it’s not too late for me to help you?” And as he continued to stare, she brought out sublimely:  “Take the rest—­in imagination!  Let it at least be of that much use to you.  Tell her I lied to her—­she’s too ready to believe it!  And so, after all, in a sense, I sha’n’t have been wasted.”