ave you to say for yourself?"

"That I ask your pardon," said Landless steadily. "I should have made
known my presence in the room. But at first I thought you aware of it;
and when I discovered that you were not, I ... it seemed best to remain
silent. I was wrong. I should have made some sign even then. Again, I
beg your pardon." He turned to Patricia, who stood, tall, straight, and
coldly indignant, beside the chair from which she had risen. "Madam," he
said in a voice that faltered, despite himself, "I crave your
forgiveness."

She bit her coral under lip, and looked at him from under veiled
eyelids. It was a cruel look, very expressive of scorn, abhorrence, and
perhaps of fear.

"My father hath many unmannerly servants," she said coldly and clearly,
"who often provoke me. But I pardon them because they know no better. It
seems that like allowance cannot be made for you. However," she smiled
icily, "I shall not complain of you to my father, which assurance will
doubtless content you."

Landless turned from burning red to deadly white. His eyes, fixed upon
the floor, caught the rich shimmer of her skirts as she moved towards
the door; a moment and she was gone, leaving the two men facing each
other.

Between them there existed a subtle but strong antagonism. Sir Charles
Carew, courtier in a coarse and shameless court masquerading under a
glittering show of outward graces, had taken lazy delight in heaping
quiet insults upon the man who could not resent them. This amusement had
beguiled the tedium of the Virginia voyage; and when chance threw them
together upon a Virginia plantation, where life flowed on in one long,
placid lack of variety, the sport became doubly prized. It had to be
pursued at longer intervals, but pursued it was. Heretofore the
amusement had been all upon one side; now, Sir Charles felt a chagrined
suspicion that it was he who had afforded the entertainment.
Simultaneously with arriving at this conclusion he arrived at a point
where he was coldly furious.

Landless returned his look coolly and boldly. He considered that he had
made quite sufficient apology for an offense which was largely
involuntary, and he was in no mood for further abasement.

"You are an insolent rascal," said the baronet smoothly.

Landless smiled. "Sir Charles Carew should be a good judge of
insolence."

Sir Charles took a leisurely pinch of snuff, shook the fallen grains
from his ruffles, snapped the lid of the box