"Why? Don't you think I should tell you the truth?"

Her eyes glided my way for a sidelong look, and she murmured,
moving only her full, pouting lips:

"I think you would not dare."

"Do you imagine I am afraid of you? What on earth. . . . Well,
it's possible, after all, that I don't know exactly why I am coming
here. Let us say, with Miss Jacobus, that it is for no good. You
seem to believe the outrageous things she says, if you do have a
row with her now and then."

She snapped out viciously:

"Who else am I to believe?

"I don't know," I had to own, seeing her suddenly very helpless and
condemned to moral solitude by the verdict of a respectable
community. "You might believe me, if you chose."

She made a slight movement and asked me at once, with an effort as
if making an experiment:

"What is the business between you and papa?"

"Don't you know the nature of your father's business? Come! He
sells provisions to ships."

She became rigid again in her crouching pose.