“No;”—she smiled slightly—“I thought—I believe I have said this to you before !—you were a gentleman. I really did, Mr. Glenarm. I must say it to justify myself. I relied upon your chivalry; I even thought, when I played being Olivia, that you had a sense of honor. But you are not the one and you haven’t the other. I even went so far, after you knew perfectly well who I was, as to try to help you—to give you another chance to prove yourself the man your grandfather wished you to be. And now you come to me in a shocking bad humor,—I really think you would like to be insulting, Mr. Glenarm, if you could.”

“But Pickering, you came back with him; he is here and he’s going to stay ! And now that the property belongs to you, there is not the slightest reason why we should make any pretense of anything but enmity. When you and Arthur Pickering stand together I take the other side of the barricade ! I suppose chivalry would require me to vacate, so that you may enjoy at once the spoils of war.”

“I fancy it would not be very difficult to eliminate you as a factor in the situation,” she remarked icily.

“And I suppose, after the unsuccessful efforts of Mr. Pickering’s allies to assassinate me, as a mild form of elimination, one would naturally expect me to sit calmly down and wait to be shot in the back. But you may tell Mr. Pickering that I throw myself upon your mercy. I have no other home than this shell over the way, and. I beg to be allowed to remain until—at least—the bluebirds come. I hope it will not embarrass you to deliver the message.”

“I quite sympathize with your reluctance to deliver it yourself,” she said. “Is this all you came to say ?”

“I came to tell you that you could have the house, and everything in its hideous walls,” I snapped; “to tell you that my chivalry is enough for some situations and that I don’t intend to fight a woman. I had accepted your own renouncement of the legacy in good part, but now, please believe me, it shall be yours tomorrow. I’ll yield possession to you whenever you ask it, but never to Arthur Pickering ! As against him and his treasure-hunters and assassins I will hold out for a dozen years !”

“Nobly spoken, Mr. Glenarm ! Yours is really an admirable, though somewhat complex character.”

“My character is my own, whatever it is,” I blurted.

“I shouldn’t call that a debatable proposition,” she replied, and I was angry to find how the mirth I had loved in her could suddenly become so hateful. She half-turned away so that I might not see her face. The thought that she should countenance Pickering in any way tore me with jealous rage.