That is likely, is it not? You shall have the
pleasure, Mademoiselle--and you, Monsieur--of seeing with me what that
careless person left behind him."
He had laid the thing on the table, and now he tapped it, aggravatingly,
with his hand. But the strain was over for me. I looked on with
calmness, and was amazed when at last Maxine flew to him, no longer
scornful, tragically indifferent in her manner, but imploring--a weak,
agonized woman.
"For the love of God, spare me, Monsieur," she sobbed. "You don't
understand. I confess that what you have there, is mine. I have held
myself high, in my own eyes, and the eyes of the world, because I--an
actress--never took a lover. But now I am like the others. This is my
lover. There's the price I put on my love. Now, Monsieur, I ask you on
my womanhood to hold what is in that leather case sacred."
I felt the blood rush to my face as if she had struck me across it with
a whip. My first thought, to my shame, was a selfish one. What if this
became known, this thing that she had said, and Diana should hear? Then
indeed all hope for me with the girl I loved would be over. My second
thought was for Maxine herself.
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