'Much more convenient,' echoed Rose sharply. 'And you have known this all the time, and not----' she broke off, as if incredulous of her own half-uttered thought.
'Certainly, I have known it, and we would have kept the secret too, Fitzgerald and I, but for this unfortunate business,' he retorted, and his tone was not pleasant.
'Ah! _he_ is different; _he_ did not know! _he_ thought George had done it for his sake, to screen him. But you? What did you believe?' The girl's very voice was a challenge.
'I must say, Miss Tweedie, that I scarcely see how my belief affects the question; or, pardon me, what it matters to you,' he replied, taking refuge once more in his indifference.
'Do you not? Then I do. Not that it matters now,' she added in sudden passion, 'for I will have my own way in the future. If you won't help me, I can't help that; but I will have the truth. I will go down to this woman in the bazaar and make her tell me. Whether her story is a lie or not, there shall be no more concealment. I will not have it.'
'And George Keene's memory?' he suggested, angered almost beyond his self-control by her unmistakable defiance. 'My advice is unwelcome, of course, but if you took it, and Mrs. Boynton's--only that is unwelcome too--you might save all scandal. I cannot say for certain that it would, but as I have told you, I would do my best. Officially even, I would do my best. That seems to be an offence also, for some reason, but I would do it as much for the sake of the Department as for the boy's. You--I know--think only of him----'
She turned upon him like lightening, carried out of herself by her scorn, by her passion.
'Of him! I was not thinking of him at all! I was thinking of you--of you only, as I always do. Why should you not know the truth? You will not care a pin whether I think of you or not. And I? I care for nothing--nothing so long as you do not blindfold yourself wilfully--so long as you are just and honest. Ah! you may think I am mad--perhaps if what you believe about men and women is true, I am--but it means everything--everything in the world to me that you should be so--just and honest; because what you are is more to me than all the world beside. That is the truth.' The last words came slowly as the fire of her passion died down; yet there was no uncertainty in them. 'I suppose I oughtn't to have said this,' she went on, turning from him to lean her elbows on the table, and rest her head on her hands wearily. 'But you won't mind, and I don't care. It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved--it can't.'