Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/295

 "What am I doing?" he swung toward her. "You want him here?"

"Yes."

"What? Oh, maybe I do, too; he might get away altogether; and if you've hurt her" he was threatening Rinderfeld again.

"Be still, Billy," Marjorie begged. "You shan't say such things. Mr. Rinderfeld's never hurt me; he wouldn't dream of doing to me what you, yourself, have just done!"

"I?"

"Oh, I felt the fineness of it, too, Billy; I felt what you meant to be the fineness of it—your coming to find me that way to—to save me. But do you think, when you do a thing like that and when you say a thing like this against Mr. Rinderfeld, it's not—also an insult to me? You're wrong and unjust and insulting to him"

"Insulting to him!" Billy repeated and laughed. "Insulting to Felix Rinderfeld!"

"You shan't!" she denied. "You shan't. Mr. Rinderfeld never came into my trouble of his own accord; we asked him to help me—you and Gregg and I. I went to him to have him help me, and he has helped me more than any one else, more than ever you have and in a way which should make you ashamed—ashamed of yourself for what you think and say of him and me. I didn't imagine a man could be as unpersonal and considerate of a girl in my situation as he has been. I thank him for it; I haven't been able to thank him before; he wouldn't have let me; so I thank him for it now!"

Rinderfeld moved then; he had not moved when Billy reached for him or when Marjorie first defended him;