"I beg pardon," he was saying quizzically, "but isn't this yours?" The accent and benevolent eye were unmistakable. If there were any arrow in her quiver of scorn unshot, his effrontery completely disarmed her. If looks could have killed, Crabb must have died at once. Assured of the depths of his infamy, she could only murmur rather faintly: "I shall go to my seat, at once, please." Indeed, Crabb was a very lively corpse. He was smiling coolly down at her. "Certainly, if you wish it. Only--er--I hope you'll let me go along." How she hated him! The words uttered again with the same smiling effrontery seemed to be burned anew into her memory. Could she never be free from this inevitable man? Her seat was at the far end of the room. "I think you have done me some injustice," he said quietly, and then, "It has been a pleasant dance. Thank you so much." "Thank you," replied Patricia acidly, and he was gone. CHAPTER VIII Miss Wharton rather crossly dismissed her weary maid, and threw herself into an armchair. Odious situation! Her peccadillo had found her out! What made the matter still worse was the ingenuous impeccability of her villain. On every hand she heard his praises sung. And it vexed her that she had been unable to contribute anything to his detriment. Of course, after seeing her leave the parasol it would have been stupid of him to--to let her forget it. In her thoughts that adventure had long since been condoned. It was this new _rencontre_ which had so upset her. It angered her to think how little delicacy he gave her credit for when he had asked Jack Barclay to present him. If they had met by chance, it would have been different. She would have been sharply civil, but not retrospective; and would have trusted to his sense of the situation to be the same. That he had assailed her helpless barriers, wrote him down a brute, divested him of all the garments of sensibility in which she had clothed him. It angered her to think that her fancy had seen fit to make him any other than he was. But mingled with her anger, she was surprised to discover disappointment, too. It was this--this person who shared with her the secret of her one iniquity. She pulled impatiently at her long gloves and arose with an air of finality. And so Miss Wharton put the importunate Mr. Crabb entirely from her mind; until the following Thursday night at the dinner at the Hollingsworths'. "Patty, dear, have you met Mr. Crabb?" Mrs. Hollingsworth was saying. Miss Wharton had, at the Assembly.