“It won’t wash. You knew all right. Well, what’s the matter now? Why have you suddenly turned cool? What have I done? Strikes me I’ve been pretty patient! You showed me clearly enough what you wanted.”

“Oh, I didn’t, I didn’t!” she cried passionately. “How dare you say such a thing? How dare you?”

“You led me on! You know jolly well that you did! I don’t know what your game was—I don’t want to know! Pretty low-down, it seems. I suppose you just wanted an exciting flirtation? Well, you chose the wrong man to play that game with, I can tell you.”

She was gripping the chair-back with all her might; there was not a vestige of colour in her face, but her eyes were flaming.

“You’re—insulting me! You wouldn’t—dare—if my husband was here!”

“Your husband! I like that! You’d better leave him out of the discussion. You chucked him, you encouraged me to dance attendance on you, and then you talk about insults! Yes, and you’re the injured saint! You know well enough that this is your own fault. I’d never have ‘insulted’ you if you hadn’t shown me that you wanted me to. Your talk of ‘being more careful’! What did that mean, my lady?”

“You’re horrible, horrible!” she panted. “That you should think that of me!”

“And what did you suppose I’d think? When a woman leaves her husband and allows another man to take her about and visit her every day, what is a man to think?”

“I asked you not to!” she flashed. “You know I did!”

“Yes, in a way that meant you’d be jolly disappointed if I obeyed you!”

So that was how he read her anxiety not to wound his feelings? She felt sick, disgusted.

“If I’d known what you were really like, I’d never have let you speak to me!” she said.

“All I can say is, if you imagined that I’d be content with a thus-far-and-no-further arrangement, you were a fool. You’re one of those women who play with fire and then blame the fire when it burns them! You got what you asked for, and this outraged virtue air you’re putting on is a bit out of place! Good Lord, what do you suppose people are thinking?”

She started.

“Thinking?” she echoed numbly.

“Yes, thinking. You’ve been everywhere with me for months. What did that damned Ruthven woman think when she saw you with me? What did Caryll think when he met us at Ripley? And old Johnson, at Ranelagh? They thought what I thought—what anyone’ud think! And you pretend to be perfectly innocent and blameless!”

Her body seemed on fire; she saw Wendell through a mist.

“What—do they—think?” she whispered.