“You ought to feel flattered, at any rate,” I remarked, maliciously. He flushed an angry glance at me. “What nonsense!” he exclaimed. “I beg your pardon, I ought not to have said that. Neither,” he continued, after a moment’s pause, “ought you to have said what you did.” I had stopped short at his first exclamation. I hesitated and then walked slowly on again. After all it was my fault. “Perhaps I ought not,” I answered. “At the same time I am not at all sure that she might not have given up this quest of hers if only you had not been here.” “I don’t agree with you at all,” he answered, firmly. “She would have given it up, I believe, if she had not seen that photograph in Adelaide’s cabinet. It is that which makes her to decide to remain here.” “Has she any fresh suspicions?” “I don’t think so,” he answered. “She believes that you and Adelaide Fortress are in league together. She believes that you both know where Philip Maltabar is. She also----” he continued, very slowly. “Well?” I interrupted. “She also seems to have an idea that you are keeping your father away from her so that she may not have an opportunity of asking him about Philip Maltabar. She has written to him, as you know, and the answer came back in a lady’s handwriting. She does not believe that your father had that letter. She believes that you intercepted and answered it.” “She is stopping really, then, to see him?” I said. “Chiefly, I am afraid.” Our eyes met for a moment, but we said nothing. I looked away through the trees to the glimmering front of the Yellow House, and asked him a question softly. “She has not any further suspicion, then?” “None, I am sure,” he answered, confidently. “It is you whom she believes to be shielding the man. She has a strong idea that he is a friend of yours; strangely enough she seems to have taken a violent dislike to you too. I believe that the very fact of that dislike blinds her a little.” “I agree with you as to the dislike. But why strangely?” His firm lips parted a little. He looked at me with a smile. “You do not appear to me,” he said, slowly, “to be a person to be disliked.” I made a mental registration of that remark. It was the nearest approach to a compliment he had ever paid me. “I am infinitely obliged,” I said. “At the same time I think I can understand her dislike.” “You women are so quick at understanding one another,” he remarked. “And men are so slow,” I replied. “Do you know I have an idea that if she were to come here now she would dislike me even more.” He looked at me without embarrassment, with a genuine desire for information in his face. He was evidently puzzled. “Why?” he asked. I laughed outright, and it did me good. He joined in it without the least idea of what I was laughing at. “You men are so stupid!” I exclaimed. “You either will not or cannot see things which are as simple as A B C.” “I admit it,” he answered, good humoredly. “But must you go in?”