"Thank you, Martin," she said quietly.
He turned to her with fury."What did you mean at breakfast," he asked, "by what you said about myself and Maggie Cardinal?"She looked at him with contempt but no very active hostility.
"I was simply telling you something that I thought you ought to know," she said."It is what everybody is saying--that you and she have been meeting every day for weeks, sitting in the Park after dark together, going to the theatre.People draw their own conclusions, I suppose.""How much have you told father of this?" he demanded.
"I don't know at all what father has heard," she answered.
"You've been that girl's enemy since the first moment that she came here," he continued, growing angrier and angrier at her quiet indifference."Now you're trying to damage her character.""On the contrary," she answered, "I told you because I thought you ought to know what people were saying.The girl doesn't matter to me one way or another--but I'm sorry for her if she thinks she cares for you.That won't bring her much happiness."Then suddenly her impassivity had a strange effect upon him.He could not answer her.He left them both, and went up to his room.