t mean that!"

"Then why explain anything? Don't you think we have fenced with each
other long enough?" He picked up the gloves quickly, and again laid
them down. "Don't you think I can understand without explanation?"

"Understand?"

"Why you came to me to-night."

"Understand--why I came to-night?"

"I think so."

He turned and looked straight into her eyes.

At the look and the movement the blood leaped to her face; she drew
back into her chair.

"And why do you think I came to-night?"

Very swiftly Deerehurst bent forward.

"I think, little lady, that you came because you know that a man cannot
be played with for ever. And because, being a very proud woman, you
will not say in so many words, 'I give you leave to love me!' Dear
little Clodagh!" He suddenly put out his hand towards hers. "It has all
been very delightful--your reticence and your innocence. But we both
know that such pretty things are perishable."

Clodagh sat perfectly still. She did not attempt to withdraw her hand;
she did not attempt to rise. She sat watching him as if fascinated,
while a hundred recollections of looks, of words, of insinuations
directed against her and him by Lady Frances Hope--by Rose Bathurst--by
other women of their set--strayed in nightmare fashion across her mind.

Deerehurst sat watching her, his hand holding hers, his eyes steadily
reading her face. Then suddenly he gave a short laugh and leant back in
his chair.

"Little actress!" he said.

The words, but more than the words the tone in which they were spoken,
roused her. She rose incontinently to her feet, a sudden memory of
Serracauld and the card-room at Tuffnell sweeping across her mind.

"Lord Deerehurst," she said breathlessly, "there is some terrible
mistake. You utterly, utterly misunderstand."

It was Deerehurst's turn to show emotion. For the first time in her
knowledge of him, the mask of impassivity dropped from his face; his
cold eyes gleamed unpleasantly.

"And how, little lady? I am not often accused of misreading men--and
women."

"You think----" She paused, unable to find the words she needed. She
felt like one who has inadvertently stepped upon shifting sands, where
the ground had seemed most secure.

"You think----" she began again.

But she got no further. With a silent movement, Deerehurst laid his
hand upon her arm.

"Don't you think we have fenced long enough? Don't you think I have
been extraordinarily patient?"

Clodag