you don't choose to play the fool."

She was cowed, and hated herself for being cowed--hated Knight, too.

"What do you call playing the fool?" she asked.

"Behaving as you're behaving now; and as you've been behaving these last
few weeks. I'm not blind, you know. You have been trying your power over
me. I suppose that's what you'd call the trick. Well, my dear Madalena,
it won't work. I hoped you might realize that without making a scene; but
you wouldn't. You've brought this on yourself, and there's nothing for it
now but a straight talk.

"My wife is not jealous. It's not in her to be jealous. If she doesn't
like you, Madalena, it's instinctive mistrust. I don't think she's even
seen the claws sticking out of the velvet. But _I_ have. I've seen
exactly what you are up to. You talk about our 'past'. You want to force
my hand. You expect me, because I've been a decent pal, and paid what I
thought was due, to pay higher, a fancy price. I won't. My wife had no
hand in keeping you out of the Easter house party. It was I who said you
weren't to be asked. You had to be taught that you couldn't dictate
terms. You wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, so the lesson had to be more
severe than I meant. Now we understand each other."

"I doubt it!" cried Madalena.

"You mean I don't understand _you_? I think I do, my friend. And I'm not
afraid. If I'm not a white angel, certainly _you're_ not. We're tarred
with the same brush. Forget this afternoon, if you like, and I'll forget
it. We can go back to where we were before. But only on the promise that
you'll be sensible. No cat-scratchings. No mysteries."

It was all that the Countess de Santiago could do to bite back the threat
which alone could have given her relief. Yet she did bite it back. Her
triumph would be incomplete in ruining the man if he could not know that
he owed his punishment to her. But she must be satisfied with the second
best thing. She dared not put him on his guard, and she dared not let him
guess that she meant to strike.

He would wonder perhaps, when the blow fell, and say to himself, "Can
Madalena have done this?" She must so act that his answer would be, "No.
It's an accident of fate." Knight was not the sort of man who for a mere
wandering suspicion, without an atom of proof, would pull a woman down.
And there would be no proof.

"You are not kind," was the only response she ventured. "And you are not
just. I did not want to 'scratch.' I would not