"The knights of old didn't have to go before a judge and jury and serve seven years at Dartmoor for their sins," he said unpleasantly. She was sitting on a low chair overlooking the sea, whittling a twig with a silver-handled knife she had taken from her bag--a favourite occupation of hers in moments of cogitation. "All the ladies of old didn't go to the police," she said. "Some of them were quite happy with their powerful lords, especially delicate-minded ladies who shrank from advertising their misfortune to the readers of the Sunday press. I think most women like to be wooed in the cave-man fashion, Marcus." "Is that the kind of treatment you'd like, Jean?" There was a new note in his voice. Had she looked at him she would have seen a strange light in his eyes. "I'm merely advancing a theory," she said, "a theory which has been supported throughout the ages." "I'd let her go and her money, too," he said. He was speaking quickly, almost incoherently. "There's only one woman in the world for me, Jean, and I've told you that before. I'd give my life and soul for her." He bent over, and caught her arm in his big hand. "You believe in the cave-man method, do you?" he breathed. "It is the kind of treatment you'd like, eh, Jean?" She did not attempt to release her arm. "Keep your hand to yourself, Marcus, please," she said quietly. "You'd like it, wouldn't you, Jean? My God, I'd sacrifice my soul for you, you little devil!" "Be sensible," she said. It was not her words or her firm tone that made him draw back. Twice and deliberately she drew the edge of her little knife across the back of his hand, and he leapt away with a howl of pain. "You--you beast," he stammered, and she looked at him with her sly smile. "There must have been cave women, too, Marcus," she said coolly, as she rose. "They had their methods--give me your handkerchief, I want to wipe this knife." His face was grey now. He was looking at her like a man bereft of his senses. He did not move when she took his handkerchief from his pocket, wiped the knife, closed and slipped it into her bag, before she replaced the handkerchief tidily. And all the time he stood there with his hand streaming with blood, incapable of movement. It was not until she had disappeared round the corner of the house that he pulled out the handkerchief and wrapped it about his hand. "A devil," he whimpered, almost in tears, "a devil!" Chapter XXVI Jean Briggerland discovered a new arrival on her return to the house. Jack Glover had come unexpectedly from London, so Lydia told her, and Jack himself met her with extraordinary geniality. "You lucky people to be in this paradise!" he said. "It is raining like the dickens in London, and miserable beyond description. And you're looking brown and beautiful, Miss Briggerland." "The spirit of the warm south has got into your blood, Mr. Glover," she said sarcastically. "A course at the Riviera would make you almost human."