ring
contempt of her tone.

"Enough to expect ample apology. How dare you, how dare you say such
things? What you may imagine, what unworthy idea you may have formed,
is beyond me to guess, but you can know nothing. You can have no real
reason for condemning me."

"Let me admit that, and leave the matter there," I pleaded. I could
not bring myself to tell her that she was self-condemned, that she was
the principal witness against herself. It would have been too cruel,
ungenerous, to take an unfair advantage. Why should I constitute
myself her judge?

She looked at me very keenly, her eyes piercing me through and
through. I felt that she was penetrating my inmost thoughts and
turning me inside out.

"I will not leave it at that. I insist upon your speaking plainly. I
must know what is in your mind."

"And if I refuse, distinctly, positively, categorically; if I deny
your contention, and protest that I have nothing to tell you?"

"I shall not believe you. Come, please, let there be no more evasion.
I must have it out. I shall stay here until you tell me what you think
of me, and why."

She seated herself by my side in the narrow velvet seat of the small
compartment, so close that the folds of her tweed skirt (she had
removed her ulster) touched and rubbed against me. I was invaded by
the sweet savour of her gracious presence (she used some delightful
scent, _violette ideale_, I believe), by putting forth my hand a few
inches I might have taken hers in mine. She fixed her eyes on me with
an intent unvarying gaze that under other conditions would have been
intoxicating, but was now no more than disquieting and embarrassing.

As I was still tongue-tied, she returned to her point with resolute
insistence.

"Come, Colonel Annesley, how long is this to go on? I want and will
have an explanation. Why have you formed such a bad opinion of me?"

"How do you know I have done so?" I tried to fence and fight with her,
but in vain.

"I cannot be mistaken. I myself heard you tell my maid that you wished
to have nothing to say to us, that we were not your sort. Well! why is
that? How do I differ from the rest of--your world, let us call it?"

"You do not, as far as I can see. At least you ought to hold your own
anywhere, in any society, the very best."

"And yet I'm not 'your sort.' Am I a humbug, an impostor, an
adventuress, a puppet and play-actress? Or is it that I have
forfeited my right, my rank of gentlewoman, my