"I don't want you on your knees,"--pettishly. "I detest a man on his knees, he always looks so silly. As for my card,"--grandly,--"here it is." Dorian, taking it, opens it, and, running his eyes down the small columns, stops short at number ten. There, sure enough, is "D. B." in very large capitals indeed. "You see," he says, feeling himself, as he says it, slightly ungenerous. "I am very sorry," says Miss Broughton, standing far away from him, and with a little quiver in her tone. "I have behaved badly, I now see. But I did not mean it." She has grown very pale; her eyes are dilating; her rounded arms, soft and fair and lovable as a little child's, are gleaming snow-white against the background of shining laurel leaves that are glittering behind her in the moonlight. Her voice is quiet, but her eyes are full of angry tears, and her small gloved hands clasp and unclasp each other nervously. "You have proved me in the wrong," she goes on, with a very poor attempt at coolness, "and, of course, justice is on your side. And you are quite right to say anything that is unkind to me; and--and I _hate_ people who are always in the right." With this she turns, and, regardless of him, walks hurriedly, and plainly full of childish rage, back to the house. Dorian, stricken with remorse, follows her. "Georgie, forgive me! I didn't mean it; I swear I didn't!" he says, calling her by her Christian name for the first time, and quite unconsciously. "Don't leave me like this; or, at least let me call to-morrow and explain." "I don't want to see you to-morrow or any other day," declares Miss Broughton, with cruel emphasis, not even turning her head to him as she speaks. "But you shall see me to-morrow," exclaims he, seizing her hand, as she reaches the conservatory door, to detain her. "You will be here; I shall come to see you. I entreat, I implore you not to deny yourself to me." Raising her hand, he presses it with passionate fervor to his lips. Georgie, detaching her hand from his grasp, moves away from him. "'Must is for the queen, and shall is for the king,'" quotes she, with a small pout, "and to-morrow--catch me if you can!" She frowns slightly, and, with a sudden movement, getting behind a large flowering shrub, disappears from his gaze for the night. CHAPTER XXIV. "But sweeter still than this, than these, than all, Is first and passionate love: it stands alone."--BYRON. Next day is born, lives, grows, deepens; and, as the first cold breath of even declares itself, Dorian rides down the avenue that leads to Gowran. Miss Peyton is not at home (he has asked first for her, as in duty bound), and Miss Broughton is in the grounds somewhere. This is vague. The man offers warmly to discover her and bring her back to the house to receive Mr. Branscombe; but this Mr. Branscombe will not permit. Having learned the direction in which she is gone, he follows it, and glides into a region wherein only fairies should have right to dwell.