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She inclined her head with cold disdain, still standing before him.

“I put out of the question everything that relates to our own two selves—though if you knew all the story of that year—”

“You asked to see me on business, I understood,” she interrupted, as if he had come to peddle his wares in her drawing-room.

Carmichael blushed crimson. The sting of her manner was intolerable.

“I came, if you will have it outright, to offer to save you and your brother Tom from the scandals that are already attacking his good name,” he exclaimed, angrily. “For the sake of old times I can forgive your inhospitality, and even the insulting rudeness of your, and his, and your husband’s manner to me at the Ellisons’ dinner. I suppose you did not dream that entertainment was to terminate so unfortunately for you. The mischief this article in the —— has done him is, in point of fact, incredible. I happen to have some control over the situation—”

“Then it is your work! I thought so,” she said, cutting him short. “May I ask why you presume to come to me?”