"
She dropped her eyes from his.
"I--didn't--realise--" she said in confusion.
He bent forward slightly. It was an attitude well known at the Law
Courts. "Didn't realise--" he repeated in his quiet, insistent fashion.
She met his look again--against her will.
"I didn't realise what sort of man I had to deal with," she said.
"Ah!" said Field. "And now?"
She shrank a little. There was something intolerably keen in his calm
utterance.
"I didn't do it," she said rather breathlessly. "Please remember that!"
"I do," he said.
But yet his look racked her. She threw out her hands with a sudden,
desperate gesture and rose.
"Oh, are you quite without feeling? What can I appeal to? Does position
mean a great deal to you? If so, my brother is very influential, and I
have influential friends. I will do anything--anything in my power. Tell
me what--incentive you want!"
Field rose also. They stood face to face--the self-made man and the girl
who could trace her descent from a Norman baron. He was broad-built,
grim, determined. She was slender, pale, and proud.
For a moment he did not speak. Then, as her eyes questioned him, he
turned suddenly to a mirror over the mantelpiece behind him and showed
her herself in her unveiled beauty.
"Lady Violet," he said, and his speech had a steely, cutting quality,
"you came into this room to bribe me to defend a man whom I believe to be
a criminal from the consequences of his crime.
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