" She paused,
confused and distressed. "Why should it be? Why should
things change?" She asked the question sharp. ly, as if in
appeal against her own incredulity.
Loder turned aside. He was afraid of the triumph, volcanic
and irrepressible, that her admission roused.
"Why?" she said again.
He turned slowly back. "You forget that I'm not a magician,"
he said, gently. "I hardly know what you are speaking of."
For a moment she was silent, but in that moment her eyes
spoke. Pain, distress, pride, all strove for expression; then
at last her lips parted.
"Do you say that in seriousness?" she asked.
It was no moment for fencing, and Loder knew it. "In
seriousness," he replied, shortly.
"Then I shall speak seriously, too." Her voice shook slightly
and the color came back into her face, but the hand on the arm
of the chair ceased to tremble. "For more than four years I
have known that you take drugs--for more than four years I
have acquiesced in your deceptions--in your meannesses--"
There was an instant's silence.
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