The Golden Silence

								

keeping his tone low. "Only, for Heaven's sake, Margot, don't call
me--what you did call me--anywhere, but especially here, where we might
as well be on the stage of a theatre."
"Nobody can hear us," she defended herself. "You ought to like that dear
little name I made up because you came to my rescue, and saved me from
following my father--came into my life as if you'd been a modern St.
George. Calling you my 'White Knight' shows you how I feel--how I
appreciate you and everything. If you just would realize that, you
couldn't scold me."
"I'm not scolding you," he said desperately. "But couldn't you have
stopped in your sitting-room--I suppose you have one--and let me see you
there? It's loathsome making a show of ourselves----"
"I haven't a private sitting-room. It would have been too
extravagant," returned Miss Lorenzi. "Please sit down--by me."
Stephen sat down, biting his lip. He must not begin to lecture her, or
even to ask why she had exchanged her quiet lodgings for the Carlton
Hotel, because if he once began, he knew that he would be carried on to
unsafe depths. Besides, he was foolish enough to hate hurting a woman's
feelings, even when she most deserved to have them hurt.
"Very well. It can't be helped now. Let us talk," said Stephen. "The
first thing is, what to do with this newspaper chap, if you didn't give
him the interview----"
"Oh, I did give it--in a way," she admitted, looking rather frightened,
and very beautiful. "You mustn't do anything to him. But--of course it
was only because I thought it would be better to tell him the truth.
Surely it was?"
"Surely it wasn't. You oughtn't to have received him."
"Then do you mind so dreadfully having people know you've asked me to
marry you, and that I've said 'yes'?"
Margot Lorenzi's expression of pathetic reproach was as effective as her
eyelash play, when seen for the first time, as Stephen knew to his
sorrow. But he had seen the one as often as the other.
"You must know I didn't mean anything of the sort. Oh, Margot, if you
don't understand, I'm afraid you're hopeless."
"If you speak like that to me, I shall simply end everything as my
father did," murmured the young woman, in a stifled, breaking voice. But
her eyes were blazing.
It almost burst from Stephen to order her not to threaten him again, to
tell her that he was sick of melodrama, sick to the soul; but he kept
silence. She was a passionate woman, and perhaps in a moment of madness
she might carry out her threat. He had done a great deal to save her
life--or, as he thought, to save it. After going so far he must not fail
now in forbearance. And worse than having to live with beautiful,
dramatic Margot, would it be to live without her if she killed herself
because of him.
"Forgive me. I didn't mean to hurt you," he said when he could control
his voice.
She smiled. "No, of course you didn't. It was stupid of me to fly out. I