Cara stood as though turned to stone. The whole thing became perfectly clear to her on the instant. It had not been just a carelessly selfish proposal--that bargain he had made with Ann--but a deliberately thought-out scheme. Slowly she replaced the useless notes in the little silken bag which had held them. "Ah! I see you understand," he observed, watching her with some amusement. She looked at him with a desperate demand in her eyes. "Brett, what did you mean to do? What was your plan--if Ann had come?" she asked in a low, shaken voice. He laughed. "Can't you guess? Really, Cara, I think I complimented you on your perspicacity too soon! It seems to be--halting a little, shall we say?--now." "You didn't ask her here just for the pleasure it would give you--there was something else--" "It was partly for that. I at least made sure of a few hours alone with her!" A note of passion roughened his voice for a moment. Then he forced it back and his blue eyes laughed at her again, audaciously. "But it was partly for the _dis_pleasure which I thought it might give to some one else." "_Eliot!_" "Even so. He's not got precisely what you'd call an equable temperament, has he?" "And you knew"--slowly--"that if he discovered Ann had been here--" "Exactly"--with a mocking bow. "You've guessed it. 'The marriage arranged'--would not take place." Cara stared at him in frank horror. "Then it was a trap!" she exclaimed, and beneath the utter scorn and contempt which rang in her voice any other man would have winced. But it affected Brett not one jot. "Yes. And would have succeeded admirably, but for your interference. Tell me, how did you persuade Ann not to come? It isn't like her to back out of a bargain." "No, it isn't," agreed Cara warmly. "Ann would always keep her word--even if the keeping of it half killed her." "Then how?" There was a suspicion of veiled triumph in her smile. "It was quite simple," she said. "I sent her a wire, saying, 'Don't come to-night'--and signed it 'Forrester.'" Brett burst out laughing. "My felicitations! That was quite a stroke after my own heart! But still, you'll agree, it was rather a liberty to take with my name, wasn't it?" "A liberty? Perhaps. But you were trying to _ruin_ Ann's name--and her happiness. Won't you change your mind, Brett, and sell me those notes of hand?" she added, with a sudden entreaty. "I hate refusing you," he smiled back. She realised the futility of pleading with him further, and drew her furs round her shoulders preparatory to leaving him. "Then I'll go back. I'm sorry I've failed. But thank God I at least prevented Ann from coming here herself." She moved towards the door, but Brett was before her, and planted himself with his back against it. "Let me pass, Brett," she said quietly, though her heart beat a shade faster in her breast. "Again I'm sorry to refuse you," he returned mockingly. "You can't--keep me here!"