And it came--though not in the way he had anticipated.
"Porshinger! Porshinger!" she cried tensely--her sensitive nostrils aquiver, her eyes flashing, her cheeks suddenly aflame. "I hate him!--I hate him! He's a beast, Montague, a beast!"
"There isn't a doubt of it, sweetheart," he said soothingly. "I rejoice that you have found him out at last."
"I _always_ knew it--but I didn't think he would dare try his ways with me."
"What did he do, dear?" Pendleton asked--"was it at the Croydens' last night?"
"Yes--in the conservatory.--He--kissed me by force--and repeated it at least half a dozen times before he released me.--I did nothing to tempt him, Montague--_absolutely nothing_!"
"Except to be nice to him," Pendleton added quietly--"which _he_ isn't able to understand."
"Isn't able to understand in Stephanie Lorraine--with her past!" she said bitterly.
"That is the bounder in him," he explained.
"He thought, because I went wrong with Amherst, that every man could be an Amherst--if he only had the opportunity!" she exclaimed.
"He laughed and said: 'Why struggle so--no one sees us?'"
"And when I did break from him, he caught me back again, saying: 'You didn't struggle so the other night with Pendleton,' and kissed me again and again, whispering:--'aren't mine just as sweet and worth as much as his?'"
"My God!" cried Pendleton.--"Did he see me that night at Criss-Cross?"
"I think so--at least the day after, when he came there to dine, he let me infer from what he said that he had seen--I never told you, because I might have been wrong--and I didn't want to worry you."
For a brief space Pendleton did not trust himself to answer, if indeed he had the power, so overcome was he by shame and anger, and the rush of hatred that well nigh choked him. Then it passed, and he was cool and calm--preternaturally so, indeed--though the intensity of his feelings was betrayed by the flashing of his eyes. His first words were a confession of his own atrocious error.
"My poor Stephanie! I am shamed beyond words--to have brought this thing upon you by my folly."
"You are not responsible--it's myself," she said evenly. "Do you think that he would have dared it but for the Amherst affair?"
"I gave him courage--I am guilty too," he objected.