She was not to be soothed by a verbal acquiescence. “Your behavior was most unmanly, and I told you so, and you could not deny it. You pretended that you--You pretended to have feelings--You tried to make me believe that Oh, I am a fool to talk to you; you know perfectly well what I mean.” “Perfectly. I tried to make you believe that I was in love with you. How do you know I was not?” She disdained to answer; but as he waited calmly she said, “You had no right to be.” “That does not prove that I was not. Come, Agatha, you pretended to like me when you did not care two straws about me. You confessed as much in that fatal letter, which I have somewhere at home. It has a great rent right across it, and the mark of her heel; she must have stamped on it in her rage, poor girl! So that I can show your own hand for the very deception you accused me--without proof--of having practiced on you.” “You are clever, and can twist things. What pleasure does it give you to make me miserable?” “Ha!” he exclaimed, in an abrupt, sardonic laugh. “I don’t know; you bewitch me, I think.” Agatha made no reply, but walked on quickly to the end of the conservatory, where the others were waiting for them. “Where have you been, and what have you been doing all this time?” said Jane, as Trefusis came up, hurrying after Agatha. “I don’t know what you call it, but I call it perfectly disgraceful!” Sir Charles reddened at his wife’s bad taste, and Trefusis replied gravely: “We have been admiring the orchids, and talking about them. Miss Wylie takes an interest in them.” CHAPTER XIII One morning Gertrude got a letter from her father: “My Dear Gerty: I have just received a bill for L110 from Madame Smith for your dresses. May I ask you how long this sort of thing is to go on? I need not tell you that I have not the means to support you in such extravagance. I am, as you know, always anxious that you should go about in a style worthy of your position, but unless you can manage without calling on me to pay away hundreds of pounds every season to Madame Smith, you had better give up society and stay at home. I positively cannot afford it. As far as I can see, going into society has not done you much good. I had to raise L500 last month on Franklands; and it is too bad if I must raise more to pay your dressmaker. You might at least employ some civil person, or one whose charges are moderate. Madame Smith tells me that she will not wait any longer, and charges L50 for a single dress. I hope you fully understand that there must be an end to this.