“I’m forgiven then?” he said, and paused for a second, searching gravely in her brown eyes for a clue to her secret thoughts. “It must be all those books you read,” he went on, “that makes you take my scandalous confessions so calmly.” He stopped once more. “I suppose,” he flung out, “the most amazing perversities wouldn’t shock you in the least!” As soon as he had uttered these words he remembered what Darnley had told him, and he caught his breath in dismay. But Christie Malakite gave no sign of being distressed. She even smiled faintly.

“I don’t know,” she said, “that it’s my readings that have made me what I am. In a sense I am conventional. You’re wrong there. But in another sense I am⁠ ⁠… what you might call⁠ ⁠… outside the pale .”

“Do you mean⁠ ⁠… inhuman?”

She turned this over gravely.