"Yes," he exclaimed, "I am insolent to the great lady because I detect her on the verge of some petty revenge! Oh, I know you too well, my dear sister," he went on, with stern irony. "You can't rebuff me in that way. There is something behind this fine condescension. Sylvia Lee and you have been putting your heads together. Your revenge and her jealousy will make a rather dangerous alliance. You are both going to the lunch. You are both employing a new line of tactics. What does it mean? I demand to know. I have a right to know." He was very impressive, yet his voice was hardly raised above that of ordinary speech. She had always admired his gravity and calm; he had been for years her ideal and model gentleman; she hated excitement of any sort, and to see it in him gave her a positive feeling of awe. "Beverley," she murmured, half brokenly, "remember that if I had any thought of punishment toward the woman who trifled with you and humbled you, it has been because I am your sister--because I was fond of you--because" ... He interrupted her with a quick, waving gesture of the hand. "You talk insanely," he said. "She neither trifled with me nor humbled me. I was a fool even to tell you how sensibly she acted. What you call your fondness is nothing but your miserable pride. I see clearly that you have some detestable plan. Do you refuse to tell me what it is?--me, who have the right to learn it!" Every trace of color had left her cheeks, and she was biting her lips. There was very little of the great lady remaining in her mien or visage, now. "You have twice spoken of your right," she faltered. "On what is such a right based? How can you possibly possess it? You are nothing to her. You are neither her husband nor"-- "I am her lover," he broke in. "I am her lover, reverent, devout, loyal, and shall be while we both live! She is the most charming woman I have ever met. I met her too late, or she would be my wife now. It was not her fault that she refused me. She is not a bit to blame. Good Heavens! have I the monstrous arrogance to assume that she should have married an old fossil like myself because I was of a little importance in the world? No, Cornelia, that preposterous assumption belongs to you. It is just like you. And you call it love--sisterly love. I call it the very apex of intolerable pride. But admit for the moment that it is I and not yourself whom you care for. Will you tell me, on that account, what it is you mean or meant to do?" Before he had finished, Mrs. Van Horn had sunk into a chair and covered her face with both hands. Her sobs presently sounded, violent and rapid. In these brief seconds she was shedding more tears than had left her cold eyes for many years past. "I mean to do nothing--nothing!" she answered, with a gasp almost like that which leaves us when in straits for breath. "Do you give me your sacred promise," he said, "that this is true?"