"A man in my case will dare anything. Besides, you have insight enough to have known it these many weeks; and why should the plain statement anger you, when evidently the plain fact does not?--Tell me that." The question smote her to silence. For she could not tell him: neither could she answer hotly and break with him for good. Throughout the coming week, at least, their intimacy must remain intact; and beyond it her mind refused to look. She saw herself caught in a tangle of her own making: a hot wave of vexation at her helplessness, at her cruelly false position, fired her face from chin to brow. But Garth, noting the phenomenon, interpreted it otherwise. "You find my riddle unanswerable?" he questioned almost tenderly: and was met by a lightning-flash of denial. "No. By no means! The answer is simple enough. Unhappily you cannot wipe out--the fact. But you can avoid expressing it: and you must,--unless you are prepared to lose everything." "By Jove, no!--I keep what I have gained,--at any price. And at least your proffer of friendship gives me better right to monopolise you than that chap Desmond can lay claim to. But he appears to be privileged." "He is privileged." "How so?" "Simply by being the right sort of man." Garth scrutinised her keenly. "And a V.C. into the bargain--eh? I don't mind betting that's half the attraction. Just a showy bit of pluck, dashed off at a hot-headed moment--and you women turn a man into a god on the strength of it! The fellow got his chance, and took it--that's all." It is of the nature of small minds to disparage great ones; and in general Quita would have dismissed the matter with a light retort. But in her present mood, the man's petty personalities jarred more than usual. "I think we won't discuss Captain Desmond," she said without looking round. "To pick holes in a man of that quality only seems to accentuate one's own littleness." "Yours--or mine?" "Both." "By Jove--but you're frank!" "Have you ever known me otherwise?" "Can't say I have.--But I'm hanged if I know what's come to you these last two days! Except that you are always far too alluring for my peace of mind, you hardly seem like the same woman." The truth of his assertion wrenched her back to a lighter mood. "What an alarming accusation! Is any healthily intelligent and progressive human being ever the same for many weeks together? Change--readjustment--is the keynote of life; the very breath of it. When you can accuse me of _not_ changing I shall know that I have fallen into the sere and withered leaf past redemption. And now that I have expiated myself--(probably to your more complete confusion!)--we'll have a short canter to blow away cobwebs. The road is rather less breakneck just here." A flick of the whip sent Yorick forward at a bound; and Garth--stifling unheroic qualms--could not choose but follow her daring lead.