“Are you—are you _surprised_ at that? Any girl,” I forced myself to say, “would have been furious.” “You mean,” quickly, “that any girl is furious when she’s kissed.” “Oh, _I_ don’t know. I’m not thinking of other girls!” “Any girl _I_ kissed, then?” “No”—the Charrier girl’s face flashed before me, and a bitter little laugh escaped me as I spoke—“oh, _no_.” “You mean only yourself, then?” “I suppose so, but——” “_You_ objected, strenuously enough. Why?” “‘_Why?_’—” “Was it”—he was cross-examining me again—“because it was I who kissed you, or,” he paused, “because it was a merely official lover who did so?” I was caught; there was no direct answer I could make. “I hated it!” I cried defensively. He varied the form, not the question. “It, or the circumstances?” “Oh! Anything you like.” “But which?” he persisted. “There’s a world of difference between the two. If you please, Miss Trant—” (How dared he use that authoritative tone for which I detested and adored him so!) —“I want to know which it was?” “Do you think I would stay”—I tried to fence—“after being treated like that? It was”—I groped for a strong enough word—“infamous of you, Mr. Waters!” “Of me?” he said. “It would have been equally so of any man?” “Far worse of _you_!” I blurted out before I could recall it. “Why? Because I’d no right?—But nor has any other man, apparently?” he added questioningly. “Oh, _none_.” “Then,” he said, and it sounded almost triumphant, “am _I_ so specially hateful to you?” “Yes.” “_Yes?_” he caught up. “_No!_ Oh—” I felt myself shaking all over as I tried to wriggle out of this corner into which he’d got me. What was he doing? Had he guessed? Guessed that I cared? Then why drive it home?... It was worse than cruelty ... it was—“anything you like, if you must go on like this. Only—please—please _don’t_ ask—anything.” And I stopped on the sob that I could only just keep back. “Ah,” he said slowly. Still I couldn’t look at him, but I heard a change in his voice as he added, “Very well; what excuse do you expect me to offer?” “Excuse?” I flamed. I was too afraid I should break down in earnest and disgrace myself. “There _is_ no excuse you can possibly make.” “Isn’t there? There might be more than one, I think,” he said, quite gently still. “I might put forward, for instance, that I’m only an ordinary man, subject to temptation, and that you—if you’ll allow me to say so, Miss Trant—are a very lovely girl.” “Ah, no! Don’t!” I cried out, stung. “_Not_ that sort of thing.” “Quite right,” he broke in promptly, but still quietly. A second’s pause, then— “There _would_ be no excuse for snatching at you like that, Nancy, if there weren’t a reason. And the reason, if you really haven’t guessed it, is, as it happens——”