He shook his head impatiently, and stared with dogged, blinking eyes at the opposite roofs. “You don’t realise what it has all meant to me,” he said at last, his gaze still averted. The quaver in his voice profoundly affected the girl. “Listen to me--David,” she said, with something of his pathos reflected in her tone. “Turn and look at me. I haven’t the heart for even a moment of misunderstanding today. There isn’t anything on earth I won’t tell you. But you must look at me!” He slowly obeyed her, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes. “But apparently there are things which it would be merciful not to tell me,” he said, struggling for an instant for composure. Then his brows knitted themselves, and flashes played in the darkness of his glance. “Who forbids you this or that?” he demanded, the angry metallic growl rising in his voice. “Four days ago you were all alone in the world! You told me so! In detail you assured me of your isolation. What are you talking about now? You speak of receiving instructions--to avoid me altogether, to write no letter to me! Oh, I ask for no explanations----” he went on stormily, pushing back his chair to rise from the table--“don’t think I claim any right to question you. But I find myself mistaken, that is all! I am a silly duffer at a game of this sort. I take things in earnest, while the others are laughing in their sleeves. Well, I’ve had my lesson. Before God, I’ll never----” Vestalia screamed at him. She had half-risen in her place, gazing with bewildered, affrighted eyes, till some vague inkling of his meaning dawned upon her brain. “Foolish David! Foolish!” she cried aloud now. “Stop it! Stop it! You don’t know what you’re saying! Keep still, and let me talk to you!” She bent across the table, and peremptorily shook his shoulder to enforce her words. “You’re all wrong!” she clamoured, as his tempest of wrathful words subsided. Upon the silence which followed she implanted firmly the added comment: “Oh, you goose!” He looked up sullenly to her, as she stood now erect--and, meeting the glance in her eyes, felt himself clinging to it. There was for him the effect of sunshine in it--of clouds parted, of radiance and calm restored about him. Breathing hard, he gazed into her face, and came somehow to know from what he saw in it that he had been making a fool of himself. This perception assumed sharp outlines in his mind before she had spoken a word. “Now, will you behave yourself, and listen to me?” she demanded, with austerity. His shattered aspect of contrition was a sufficient answer, and she seated herself confidently. “Now I will explain things to you--although you don’t deserve it in the very least,” she began, in formal tones. “To commence with, you remember that American father and daughter that we met at the Museum, down in the basement?--well, it happened that--happened that--Oh, my poor boy, how _could_ you think so stupidly of me?”