"
Miss Brewer shook her head sadly. That legion was much reduced in its
numbers of late.
"Therefore," continued Carrington, without seeming to observe the
gesture, "I prefer to adopt the latter course, and further your
interests in securing my own. I suppose you can at least understand and
credit such very plain motives, so very plainly expressed, Miss
Brewer?"
"Yes," she said, "that may be true; it does not seem unlikely; we shall
see."
"You certainly shall. My explanation will not, I hope, be unduly
tedious, but it is indispensable that it should be full. You know, Miss
Brewer, that Sir Reginald Eversleigh and I are intimate friends?"
Miss Brewer smiled--a pale, prolonged, unpleasant smile, and then
replied, speaking very deliberately:
"I know nothing of the kind, Mr. Carrington. I know you are much
together, and have an air of familiar acquaintance, which is the true
interpretation of friendship, I take it, between men of the world--of
_your_ world in particular."
The hard and determined expression of her manner would have discouraged
and deterred most men. It did not discourage or deter Victor
Carrington.
"Put what interpretation you please upon my words," he said, "but
recognize the facts. There is a strict alliance, if you prefer that
phrase, between me and Sir Reginald Eversleigh, and his present
intimacy, with his seeming devotion to Madame Durski, prevents him from
carrying out the terms of that alliance to my satisfaction.
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