“You will cooperate with us, then? You will accept our proposition?”

“Cooperate? Accept your proposition? No, I won’t. I’ll fight! That’s what I’ll do. I’ll prove to the world whether I’m guilty or not of the filthy things rotten-minded people have said about me. And I’m glad of the chance, too. I hope Stephen will sue me for a divorce. I said I didn’t need a lawyer, when I first came here, but I need somebody to defend me against such a pack of muck-rakers. Why, Mr. Smith, I have no more done the thing you come here and accuse me of doing than your own wife, or if you’re not married, your own mother, or the woman you honor the most in this world, whoever it is, and I’ll get the best lawyer in this country to prove it.”

Behind the belying paint and elaborate make-up the white image of this woman’s innocence stood out before Morley Smith clear and defined, for an instant, like a white-sailed ship, when the fog lifts a moment—a white-sailed ship in distress. He saw it. He recognized it. He turned away from it.

“You’re going through the usual motions, Mrs. Dallas,” he commented with another sneer.

Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

1

THE SAME CHASTE charm that pervaded Helen Morrison’s summer home was even more striking in her New York house. A feeling of space and fresh air is more of a triumph in the city than in the country. In both Helen Morrison’s houses there was delicious freedom from deleterious overcrowding of possessions beneath a roof. She knew how to make walls backgrounds, instead of boundaries, as unconfining as the sky behind a mountain, or the sea behind a sail. Yet neither of her houses could be called large. Much as nature conforms itself equally happily to decorating a mountain-side, or a salt-water pool no larger than a baptismal font, so Helen conformed herself instinctively to whatever proportions were offered her. Never for the sake of displaying some beautiful work of art would Helen disturb the nice equilibrium and fine composition of a room. Never were the space and air necessary for the spiritual well-being, as it were, of one rare treasure robbed for another. She possessed a nice sense of harmony, too. She could no more have placed Tiffany glass beside old luster than have mixed people of discordant instincts at her dinner-table. This discernment was not acquired. It was as effortless with her as breathing.