"Flatterer!" he exclaimed. "If you could but see yourself now, you would
confess the truth of the indictment. You're the loveliest thing, and you
grow lovelier every day and younger. Positively, Madeline, you're a--"
he paused for words and raised his hands helplessly.
"I'm a what?" she murmured, leaning a bit toward him.
"I haven't the word; there isn't one adequate to the--subject."
"You actually mean that?" she asked, gliding into another posture, even
more alluring.
"You know I mean it," he declared. "Haven't we agreed to be honest with
each other?"
"I've been honest!" she answered.
"Meaning that I've not been?"
"Have you?" she inflected, "I wonder, Guy."
She might just as well have asked direct his feeling for Mrs.
Clephane--and he understood perfectly the question.
He nodded, slowly but none-the-less definitely.
She took a cigarette and lighted it with careful attention, then blew
the smoke sharply against the incandescent coal.
"Guy," said she, "I'm about to speak plainly; please don't
misunderstand; I'm simply a woman, now--a weak woman, perhaps; it will
be for you to judge me at the end." She smiled faintly.
"Not a weak woman, Madeline," he replied. "Your worst enemy would not
venture to call you that.
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