The perfume of her hair
was in his nostrils, and when he remembered how cold she had once been
to him, a longing that was stronger than the humiliation that came with
it grew almost overwhelming. Still, because of her very trust in him,
there was a wrong he could not do, and it dawned on him that a means of
placing himself beyond further temptation was opening to him. Maud
Barrington, he knew, would have scanty sympathy with an intrigue of the
kind Courthorne's recent adventure pointed to.
"You mean, why do I not deny what you have no doubt heard?" he said.
"What could one gain by that if you had heard the truth?"
Maud Barrington laughed softly. "Isn't the question useless?"
"No," said Winston, a trifle hoarsely now.
The girl touched his arm almost imperiously as he turned his head again.
"Lance," she said. "Men of your kind need not deal in subterfuge. The
wheat and the bridge you built speak for you."
"Still," persisted Winston, and the girl checked him with a smile.
"I fancy you are wasting time," she said. "Now, I wonder whether, when
you were in England, you ever saw a play founded on an incident in the
life of a once famous actor. At the time it rather appealed to me.
The hero, with a chivalric purpose assumed various shortcomings he had
really no sympathy with--but while there is, of course, no similarity
beyond the generous impulse, between the cases--he did not do it
clumsily. It is, however, a trifle difficult to understand what
purpose you could have, and one cannot help fancying that you owe a
little to Silverdale and yourself.
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