"I want to ask you a plain
question--and I expect a plain answer. Why are you blackmailing my
mother?"
Pratt shook his head--as if he felt more sorrow than anger. He glanced
deprecatingly at his visitor.
"I think you'll be sorry--on reflection--that you said that, Miss
Mallathorpe," he answered. "You're a little--shall we say--upset? A
little--shall we say--angry? If you were calmer, you wouldn't say such
things--you wouldn't use such a term as--blackmailing. It's--dear me, I
dare say you don't know it!--it's actionable. If I were that sort of
man, Miss Mallathorpe, and you said that of me before witnesses--ah! I
don't know what mightn't happen. However--I'm not that sort of man.
But--don't say it again, if you please!"
"If you don't answer my question--and at once," said Nesta, whose cheeks
were pale with angry determination, "I shall say it again in a fashion
you won't like--not to you, but to the police!"
Pratt smiled--a quiet, strange smile which made his visitor feel a
sudden sense of fear. And again he shook his head, slowly and
deprecatingly.
"Oh, no!" he said gently. "That's a bigger mistake than the other, Miss
Mallathorpe! The police! Oh, not the police, I think, Miss Mallathorpe.
You see--other people than you might go to the police--about something
else."
Nesta's anger cooled down under that scarcely veiled threat.
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