“No, you don't,” he burst forth. “You have spent your life standing on a golden pedestal, being kowtowed to, and you imagine yourself immune from difficulties because you think you can pay your way out of anything. But you will find that you cannot pay your way out of this--or rather you cannot pay Rosalie's way out of it.” “I shall not try. Go on,” said the girl. “What I do not understand, you must explain to me. Don't leave anything unsaid.” “Good God, what a woman you are!” he cried out bitterly. He had never seen such beauty in his life as he saw in her as she stood with her straight young body flat against the tree. It was not a matter of deep colour of eye, or high spirit of profile--but of something which burned him. Still as she was, she looked like a flame. She made him feel old and body-worn, and all the more senselessly furious. “I believe you hate me,” he raged. “And I may thank my wife for that.” Then he lost himself entirely. “Why cannot you behave well to me? If you will behave well to me, Rosalie shall go her own way. If you even looked at me as you look at other men--but you do not. There is always something under your lashes which watches me as if I were a wild beast you were studying. Don't fancy yourself a dompteuse. I am not your man. I swear to you that you don't know what you are dealing with. I swear to you that if you play this game with me I will drag you two down if I drag myself with you. I have nothing much to lose. You and your sister have everything.” “Go on,” Betty said briefly. “Go on! Yes, I will go on. Rosalie and Ffolliott I hold in the hollow of my hand. As for you--do you know that people are beginning to discuss you? Gossip is easily stirred in the country, where people are so bored that they chatter in self-defence. I have been considered a bad lot. I have become curiously attached to my sister-in-law. I am seen hanging about her, hanging over her as we ride or walk alone together. An American young woman is not like an English girl--she is used to seeing the marriage ceremony juggled with. There's a trifle of prejudice against such young women when they are too rich and too handsome. Don't look at me like that!” he burst forth, with maddened sharpness, “I won't have it!” The girl was regarding him with the expression he most resented--the reflection of a normal person watching an abnormal one, and studying his abnormality. “Do you know that you are raving?” she said, with quiet curiosity--“raving?” Suddenly he sat down on the low mound near him, and as he touched his forehead with his handkerchief, she saw that his hand actually shook. “Yes,” he answered, panting, “but 'ware my ravings! They mean what they say.” “You do yourself an injury when you give way to them”--steadily, even with a touch of slow significance--“a physical injury. I have noticed that more than once.”