"But, I tell you, I _can_. I can control the situation perfectly. Why can't you trust me, Quin?"
"I don't trust _him_. He's got ways of compromising a girl that you don't know anything about. If he ever gets wind of your going to Chicago----"
"I wish you wouldn't throw that up to me!" There was real anger in her voice, which up to now had shown signs of softening. "Just because I happened to me a fool once, it doesn't follow that I'll be one again! It won't be pleasant for me, but I am not going to let his connection with 'Phantom Love' spoil my chance of a lifetime."
"And he will be at all the rehearsals, I suppose, and up here in the apartment between-times." Quin's jealousy ran through him like fire through dry stubble. "You'll probably be seeing him every day."
"And what if I do?" demanded Eleanor. "I have told you our relations are strictly professional."
"That card looks like it," said Quin bitterly.
Eleanor tossed the object referred to in the trash-basket and looked at him defiantly. The very weakness of her position made her peculiarly sensitive to criticism, and the fact that her mentor was her one-time slave augmented her wrath.
"See here, Miss Nell." Quin came a step closer, and his voice was husky with emotion. "I know how keen you are about the stage; but, take it from me, you are making a wrong start. If you'll just promise to wait until your time is up----"
"I won't promise anything! What's the use? Nobody believes me. Even you are siding with grandmother and suspecting me of breaking my word. I don't intend to submit to it any longer!"
Queer, spasmodic movements were going on in Quin's lungs, and he controlled his voice with difficulty.
"You mean you are going on seeing Mr. Phipps and letting him send you flowers and things?"
"I am _not!_" Eleanor cried furiously. "But, if I should, it's nobody's business but my own!"
For an agonizing moment they faced each other angrily, both of them lost in the labyrinth of their own situation. At the slightest plea for help on her part, Quin would have broken through his own difficulties and rushed to her rescue. He would even have offered to plead her cause again at the family tribunal. But she was like a wilful child who is determined to walk alone on a high and dangerous wall. The very effort to protect her might prove disastrous.