oice carried an edge of scorn. "You mustn't
judge by appearances. I know you wouldn't be unfair. I had to take
her home and look after her."

"I don't quite see why--unless, of course, you wanted to," the girl
answered, tapping the arm of her chair with impatient finger-tips, eyes
on the clock. "But of course it isn't necessary I should see."

Her cavalier treatment of him did not affect the gentle
imperturbability of the Westerner.

"Because I'm a white man, because she's a little girl who came from my
country and can't hold her own here, because she was sick and chilled
and starving. Do you see now?"

"No, but it doesn't matter. I'm not the keeper of your conscience, Mr.
Lindsay," she countered, with hard lightness.

"You're judging me just the same."

Her eyes attacked him. "Am I?"

"Yes." The level gaze of the man met hers calmly. "What have I done
that you don't like?"

She lost some of her debonair insolence that expressed itself in
indifference.

"I'd ask that if I were you," she cried scornfully. "Can you tell me
that this--friend of yours--is a good girl?"

"I think so. She's been up against it. Whatever she may have done
she's been forced to do."

"Excuses," she murmured.

"If you'd ever known what it was to be starving--"

Her smoldering anger broke into a flame. "Good of you to compare me
with her! That's the last straw!"

"I'm not comparing you. I'm merely saying that you can't judge her.
How could you, when your life has been so different?"

"Thank Heaven for that."

"If you'd let me bring her here to see you--"

"No, thanks."

"You're unjust."

"You think so?"

"And unkind. That's not like the little friend I've come to--like so
much."

"You're kind enough for two, Mr. Lindsay. She really doesn't need
another friend so long as she has you," she retorted with a flash of
contemptuous eyes. "In New York we're not used to being so kind to
people of her sort."

Clay lifted a hand. "Stop right there, Miss Beatrice. You don't want
to say anything you'll be sorry for."

"I'll say this," she cut back. "The men I know wouldn't invite a woman
to their rooms at midnight and pass her off as their sister--and then
expect people to know her. They would be kinder to themselves--and to
their own reputations."

She was striking out savagely, relentlessly, in spite of the better
judgment that whispered restraint. She wanted desperately to hurt him,
as he had hurt her