"
"My private life, ma'am?" I repeated. "I was not aware that I had a private
life."
"Anita, leave us alone with Mr. Blacklock," commanded her mother.
The girl hesitated, bent her head, and with a cowed look went slowly toward
the door. There she paused, and, with what seemed a great effort, lifted
her head and gazed at me. How I ever came rightly to interpret her look
I don't know, but I said: "Miss Ellersly, I've the right to insist that
you stay." I saw she was going to obey me, and before Mrs. Ellersly could
repeat her order I said: "Now, madam, if any one accuses me of having done
anything that would cause you to exclude a man from your house, I am ready
for the liar and his lie."
As I spoke I was searching the weak, bad old face of her husband for an
explanation. Their pretense of outraged morality I rejected at once--it was
absurd. Neither up town nor down, nor anywhere else, had I done anything
that any one could regard as a breach of the code of a man of the world.
Then, reasoned I, they must have found some one else to help them out of
their financial troubles--some one who, perhaps, has made this insult to me
the price, or part of the price, of his generosity.
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