"Has some one been forecasting your deplorable future?"
"That's exactly it."
"Well, what did you hear? Let's know the worst."
"I heard that last night, on the Malleson foot-bridge, you permitted Stephen Lamar to walk across the bridge with his arm around your waist, and to kiss you twice. Is that so?"
She did not answer him. Her face grew scarlet, and then pale. Her effort to breathe was as labored as it had been on the bridge the night before. But her eyes looked him through and through. He weakened and winced and cowered under them. He began to frame apologies.
"I guess, maybe," he stammered, "that I had no right to—to ask"
"You had a perfect right," she interrupted him. "You have made love to me honorably. If another man makes love to me with my permission, you have a right to know it."
Barry began to breathe more freely.
"I—I thought you'd look at it that way," he said.
"Yes, that's the right way. Now let us see. You've been told that I crossed the foot-bridge last evening with Stephen Lamar, and that he had his arm around me, and kissed me?"
"Yes, that's the story; but I didn't"
"Never mind that; let me tell you. Stephen Lamar did not cross the foot-bridge with me last evening. He has never crossed the foot-bridge with me. He did not have his arm around my waist. He has never had his arm around my waist. He did not kiss me. He has never kissed me. Is that sufficient?"
"That's more than sufficient," replied Barry, his face aglow with satisfaction. "I knew it was a mistake. I'll tell"
"No!" The word came from her lips with sharp vehemence. "You'll tell nobody, on pain of for-
