Betty felt her heart give a hastened beat, not of fear, but of repulsion. This was the mood and manner which subjugated Rosalie. He had so raised his voice that two men in the distance, who might be either labourers or sportsmen, hearing its high tone, glanced curiously towards them. “Why do you ask me a question which is totally absurd?” she said. “It is not absurd,” he answered. “I am speaking of facts, and I intend to come to some understanding about them.” For reply, after meeting his look a few seconds, she simply turned her back and began to walk away. He followed and overtook her. “I shall go with you, and I shall say what I want to say,” he persisted. “If you hasten your pace I shall hasten mine. I cannot exactly see you running away from me across the marsh, screaming. You wouldn't care to be rescued by those men over there who are watching us. I should explain myself to them in terms neither you nor Rosalie would enjoy. There! I knew Rosalie's name would pull you up. Good God! I wish I were a weak fool with a magnificent creature protecting me at all risks.” If she had not had blood and fire in her veins, she might have found it easy to answer calmly. But she had both, and both leaped and beat furiously for a few seconds. It was only human that it should be so. But she was more than a passionate girl of high and trenchant spirit, and she had learned, even in the days at the French school, what he had never been able to learn in his life--self-control. She held herself in as she would have held in a horse of too great fire and action. She was actually able to look--as the first Reuben Vanderpoel would have looked--at her capital of resource. But it meant taut holding of the reins. “Will you tell me,” she said, stopping, “what it is you want?” “I want to talk to you. I want to tell you truths you would rather be told here than on the high road, where people are passing--or at Stornham, where the servants would overhear and Rosalie be thrown into hysterics. You will NOT run screaming across the marsh, because I should run screaming after you, and we should both look silly. Here is a rather scraggy tree. Will you sit on the mound near it--for Rosalie's sake?” “I will not sit down,” replied Betty, “but I will listen, because it is not a bad idea that I should understand you. But to begin with, I will tell you something.” She stopped beneath the tree and stood with her back against its trunk. “I pick up things by noticing people closely, and I have realised that all your life you have counted upon getting your own way because you saw that people--especially women--have a horror of public scenes, and will submit to almost anything to avoid them. That is true very often, but not always.”