Nettie Vollar closed her eyes, her hands were rigid. The lamplight,
streaming up over her face, showed him that it was tense and pale and
answered a question. Her feeling for Gerrit Ammidon had been more than a
mere hurt pride. In addition to that he saw beyond any doubt the proof of
its existence still. This complicated his problem: inspired only by a
resentment that he might fan into hatred she would be far more pliable
than in the grip of a genuine affection for Gerrit Ammidon. He understood
the processes of the former, a flexible and useful steel; but no one
could predict the vagaries, the absurd self-sacrifices, of love. Well,
he'd have to work with what offered. That, he realized, was the strength
of his philosophy--he accepted promptly, without vain regret, the means
that lay at his hand.

"Ammidon seems worn," he said generally; "they were in the garden, and I
had a few words privately with him." Nettie glanced swiftly across the
table; her lips moved; but she repressed the obvious question trembling
on them. "He showed, I think," he continued carefully, "a very improper
interest in you."

"How?"

"He asked if you were well and happy. I most certainly told him, for any
number of reasons, for pride alone, that you were."

"Then you told a lie," she cried in a tone so hard that it surprised him.

"Of course," he went on smoothly, "I know that you are not, almost all
your circumstances prohibit that. But I don't intend to circulate it in
Salem. Opinion here may have forced you into a long loneliness, but I
shan't give anyone the satisfaction of knowing it. And, after all, you