"You have made so much of this up that you had better
finish it yourself. Put what end you prefer on it; you don't need
help."
"The end," she echoed, in a strange and smothered voice. "Is this it?
But not yet."
Lee's gaze rested on the magazine lying spread half on the Eastern
symbolism of a rug and half on the bare polished flooring. "Your story
is far more interesting than any in that," he commented, with a
gesture. "It's a pity you haven't turned your imagination to a better
use." This, he recognized, could not go on indefinitely. Fanny added:
"But I was wrong--you'd kiss her before you said Savina. That, I
believe, is the way it works. It is really screaming when you think
what you went to New York for--to protect Claire, to keep Peyton Morris
out of Mina Raff's hands. And, apparently, you succeeded but got in
badly yourself. What a pair of hypocrites you were: all the while worse
than the others, who were at least excused by their youngness, ever
could dream of being. What was the good of your contradicting me at
first? I knew all along. I felt it."
"What was it, exactly, that you felt?" he asked with an assumption of
calmness.
"I don't understand," she acknowledged, for the moment at a loss. "It
was inside me, like lead. But, whatever happened, it will come out; it
always does; and you'll be sorry."
Did the truth, he wondered, always appear, and triumph over the false;
was that precept of morality secure for those who depended on it? And,
as Fanny threatened, would he be sorry? But most assuredly he would,
for three reasons--Savina, Fanny, and himself; there might, even, be
two more, Helena and Gregory; yes, and William Loyd Grove.
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