XXIV
"Why did you do that?" Dennis asked as soon as he was alone with Rose.
She had sunk into a seat at a distance from him, all spent with her great response to her sudden opportunity for justice. His challenge brought her flight to earth; and after waiting a moment she answered him with a question that betrayed her sense of coming down. "Do you really care, after all this time, what I do or don't do?"
His rejoinder to this was in turn only another demand. "What business is it of his that you may have done this or that to me? What has passed between us is still between us: nobody else has anything to do with it."
Rose smiled at him as if to thank him for being again a trifle sharp with her. "He wants me, as he said, to be kind to you."
"You mean he wants you to do that sort of
