Look here," he declared, vigorously mopping his sock with a
handkerchief. "If you're going to say things like that I simply----"

"You can't love her."

A tinge of scarlet showed upon her white cheeks. Evidently the girl
was in earnest. It was useless to flirt with the situation.

"I am not going to attempt to prove it," said Richard very gallantly.

"In fact it's an offence for me to mention her name."

"You haven't--yet," he observed tentatively.

And as she took this to be a challenge, she leaned back in her chair
and said "Isabel Irish" with very little charity of inflexion.

"Please!" said Richard--but what he really meant was "Thank you."
Inside himself he was thinking "Damn that fellow Doran! Why the blazes
didn't he tell me about all these girls."

The sound of Auriole's voice brought him back to the necessity of the
moment.

"So _sans gene_," she was saying, "so innocent--so unworldly. I wonder
what her views would be if she learnt you had entertained a lady in
your flat at midnight."

"As the lady came uninvited," Richard returned, "I am hardly likely to
refer to the matter."

"Suppose I referred to it--advertised the fact. Do you imagine she
would marry you then?"

Richard smiled.

"I should say she'd be as likely to marry me then as she is now."

"A girl brought up as she has been?"

"Aha!"

"You're very confident. Tony, there are people watching this flat
to-night."

"Dear, dear!"

"People who will talk tomorrow morning."

"What, the chatty-at-breakfast-kind. How dreadful."

"If you wish to stop them, there is only one way."

"Yes--tell me. Always believed they were incurable."

Auriole shut her hands tight and spoke with difficulty.

"Tony, I don't know how real your affections are for this girl, but I
know this. If you refuse to answer our questions your chance of
marrying her is worth--nothing. Understand? Nothing."

And all at once Richard became serious.

"Will that please you?" he asked.

"Perhaps."

"I don't think so. I don't think it will please you, really."

"What do you mean?"

"You're too good a sort to enjoy spreading rotten fables about people
who are in love with one another."

She echoed the words "too good a sort" rather faintly.

"Yes. I suppose you--you're jealous or something--angry because my
feelings have changed. I understand that--it's natural, and I don't
defend myself, you know. It's natural you should want to hurt me, but
a