Why should I do anything?
Your position is different, for you can write to the papers and deny all that concerns you if you like--though I'm sure I don't know why you should care.
It's not to your discredit.' 'I could not very well deny it,' said the Primadonna thoughtfully.
Almost before the words had left her lips she was sorry she had spoken.
'Does it happen to be true ?' asked Lady Maud, with an encouraging smile.
'Well, since you ask me--yes.' Margaret felt uncomfortable.
'Oh, I thought it might be,' answered Lady Maud.

'With all his good qualities he has a very rough side.

The story about me is perfectly true too.' Margaret was amazed at her friend's quiet cynicism.
'Not that about the--the envelope on the table--' She stopped short.
'Oh yes! There were four thousand one hundred pounds in it.

My husband counted the notes.' The singer leaned back in her chair and stared in unconcealed surprise, wondering how in the world she could have been so completely mistaken in her judgment of a friend who had seemed to her the best type of an honest and fearless Englishwoman.

Margaret Donne had not been brought up in the gay world; she had, however, seen some aspects of it since she had been a successful singer, and she did not exaggerate its virtues; but somehow Lady Maud had seemed to be above it, while living in it, and Margaret would have put her hand into the fire for the daughter of her father's old friend, who now acknowledged without a blush that she had taken four thousand pounds from Rufus Van Torp.
'I suppose it would go against me even in an English court,' said Lady Maud in a tone of reflection.