It implied much. But had not her manner implied the same, or more? She rose; they were both standing now. "What do you mean!" she demanded, a light coming into her eyes--eyes usually abstracted, almost dull. "Only what I have said." "Why should you say it to me?" "I thought you might be--interested." "You are mistaken. I am not in the least interested. Why should I be?" "Are you not a little unkind?" "Not more unkind than you are insolent." She was very angry. He began to be a little angry himself. "I ask your pardon with the deepest humility, Miss Stowe. The insolence of which you accuse me was as far as possible from my mind. If I thought you might be somewhat interested in what I have told you, it was because you have honored me with some small share of your attention during the past week or two; probably it has spoiled me." "I have; and for a month or two, not a week or two. But there was a motive--It was an experiment." "You have used me for experimental purposes, then?" "Yes." "I am immensely grateful to have been considered worthy of a part in an experiment of yours, even although a passive one. May I ask if the experiment is ended?" "It is." "Since when? Since I made that confession about some one else?" Miss Stowe's face was pale, her dark eyes were brilliant. "I knew all the while that you were in love--hopelessly in love--with Mrs. Lovell," she said, with a proud smile. "That was the reason that, for my experiment, I selected _you_." A flush rose over his face as she spoke. "You thought you would have the greater triumph?" he asked. "I thought nothing of the kind. I thought that I should be safe, because you would not respond." "And you did not wish me to respond?" "I did not." "Excuse me--we are speaking frankly, are we not?--but do you not contradict yourself somewhat? You say you did not wish me to respond; yet, have you not tried to make me?" "That was not my object. It was but a necessary accompaniment of the experiment." "And if I _had_ responded?" he said, looking at her. "I knew you could not. I knew quite well--I mean I could imagine quite well--how much you loved Beatrice. But it has all been a piece of folly upon my part--I see it now." She turned away, and went across to the piano. "I wish you would go now," she said, in a low voice, vaguely turning over the music. "_I_ cannot, because my aunt will think it strange to find me gone." Instead of obeying her, he crossed the room and stood beside her; and then he saw in the twilight that her eyes were full of tears and her lips quivering, in spite of her effort to prevent it. "Margaret," he said, suddenly, and with a good deal of feeling in his voice, "I am not worth it! Indeed I am not!" And again he touched her hand. But she drew it from him. "Are you by any chance imagining that my tears are for _you_?" she said, in a low tone, but facing him like a creature at bay. "Have you interpreted me in that way? I have a right to know; speak!"