"Yes, I should, though Godfrey is sometimes very absurd with his fancies. I don't want to quarrel, but you really mustn't grudge my having another friend. It's not reasonable. And if Sir Oliver does admire me a little--well, is that so surprising?" She smiled coaxingly, very anxious to make friends to-night, to part friends on the morrow. "After all, aren't you a little guilty in that way yourself, Cousin Arthur?" "Not in the same----" he began, but broke off, frowning and fretful. "I've spoilt you, but I never promised you a monopoly. Now be good and sensible, do! Forget all this nonsense; go and do your work, and come back next week." He made no reply to her appeal; he sat looking at her with a hostile scrutiny. "Anyhow, you can't stay if you're going on behaving like this. It's intolerable." "I came here on Godfrey's invitation. If Godfrey asks me to go----" "If you appeal to Godfrey, you're not a friend of mine!" she cried hotly. "Impossible to be a friend both of yours and of Godfrey's, is it?" he sneered. Her face flushed; now she was very angry. "Go or stay--anyhow I've done with you!" She half-turned away, yet waited a moment still, hoping that his mood would soften. He leant forward towards her in entreaty. "Don't do it, Bernadette, for God's sake! For your own sake, for the sake of all of us who love you!" "Who loves me in this house?" she asked sharply and scornfully. "Am I so much to any of them? What am I to Godfrey, for instance? Does Godfrey love me?" She was glad to give utterance to her great excuse. But his mind was not on excuses or palliation; they belonged to his old feelings about her, and it was the new feeling which governed him now. He stretched out his arm, caught one of her hands, and drew her towards him almost roughly. "I love you, Bernadette, I love you body and soul, I worship you!" "Arthur!" she cried in amazement, shrinking, trying to draw back. "When I see that man with you, and know what he wants, and suspect--It drives me mad, I can't bear it. Oh, it's all damnable of me, I know! I could have gone on all right as we were, and been happy, but for this. But now, when I think of him, I----" With a shiver he let go her hands and buried his face in his own again. His shoulders shook as though with a sob, though no sound came. She drew near to him now of her own accord, came and stood just beside him, laying her hand gently on his shoulder. "Cousin Arthur, Cousin Arthur!" she whispered. All her anger was gone; sorrow for him swallowed it up. "You're making a mistake, you know, you are really. You don't love me--not like that. You never did. You never felt----" He raised his head. "What's the use of talking about what I did do or did feel? I know all that. It's what I do feel that's the question--what I feel now!"