She looked at Siward; it was impossible that anything very bad could come from such a man. And, pursuing her reasoning aloud: "It couldn't have been very awful," she argued; "something foolish about an actress, was it not? And that could not concern Mr. Quarrier."
"I thought you did know; I thought you--remembered--while you were driving me over from the station--that I was dropped from my club."
She flushed up: "Oh!--but--what had Mr. Quarrier to do with that?"
"He is a governor of that club."
"You mean that Mr. Quarrier had you--dropped?"
"What else could he do? A man who is idiot enough to risk making his own club notorious, must take the consequences. And they say I took that risk. Therefore Mr. Quarrier, Major Belwether--all the governors did their duty. I--I naturally conclude that no governor of the Patroons Club feels very kindly toward me."
Miss Landis sat very still, her small head bent, a flush still brightening her fair face.
She recalled a few of the details now--the scandal--something of the story. Which particular actress it was she could not remember; but some men who had dined too freely had made the wager, and this boy sitting beside her had accepted it--and won it, by bringing into the sacred precincts of the Patroons Club a foolish, shameless girl disguised in a man's evening dress.
That was bad enough; that somebody promptly discovered it was worse; but worst of all was the publicity, the club's name smirched, the young man expelled from one of the two best clubs in the metropolis.
To read of such things in the columns of a daily paper had meant little to her except to repell her; to hear it mentioned among people of her own sort had left her incurious and indifferent. But now she saw it in a new light, with the man who had figured in it seated beside her. Did such men as he--such attractive, well-bred, amusing men as he--do that sort of thing?
There he sat, hat off, the sun touching his short, thick hair which waved a little at the temples--a boyish mould to head and shoulders, a cleanly outlined check and chin, a thoroughbred ear set close--a good face. What sort of a man, then, was a woman to feel at ease with? What eye, what mouth, what manner, what bearing was a woman to trust?
"Is that the kind of man you are, Mr. Siward?" she said impulsively.
"It appears that I was; I don't know what I am--or may be."
"The pity of it!" she said, still swayed by impulse. "Why did you do--didn't you know--realize what you were doing--bringing discredit on your own club?"