ce:

'I did.'

'Then if you didn't love me, why did you ask me to marry you?' It was
his nature to be more or less satisfied when he had put any one opposed
to him proportionally in the wrong; and now his exultation at having put
a poser manifested itself in his tone. This, however, braced up Stephen
to cope with a difficult and painful situation. It was with a calm,
seemingly genial frankness, that she answered, smilingly:

'Do you know, that is what has been puzzling me from that moment to
this!' Her words appeared to almost stupefy Leonard. This view of the
matter had not occurred to him, and now the puzzle of it made him angry.

'Do you mean to say,' he asked hotly, 'that you asked a man to marry you
when you didn't even love him?'

'That is exactly what I do mean! Why I did it is, I assure you, as much
a puzzle to me as it is to you. I have come to the conclusion that it
must have been from my vanity. I suppose I wanted to dominate somebody;
and you were the weakest within range!'

'Thank you!' He was genuinely angry by this time, and, but for a
wholesome fear of the consequences, would have used strong language.

'I don't see that I was the weakest about.' Somehow this set her on her
guard. She wanted to know more, so she asked:

'Who else?'

'Harold An Wolf! You had him on a string already!' The name came like a
sword through her heart, but the bitter comment braced her to further
caution. Her voice seemed to her to sound as though far away:

'Indeed! And may I ask you how you came to know that?' Her voice seemed
so cold and sneering to him that he lost his temper still further.

'Simply because he told me so himself.' It pleased him to do in ill turn
to Harold. He did not forget that savage clutch at his throat; and he
never would. Stephen's senses were all alert. She saw an opportunity of
learning something, and went on with the same cold voice:

'And I suppose it was that pleasing confidence which was the cause of
your refusal of my offer of marriage; of which circumstance you have so
thoughtfully and so courteously reminded me.' This, somehow, seemed of
good import to Leonard. If he could show her that his intention to marry
her was antecedent to Harold's confidence, she might still go back to her
old affection for him. He could not believe that it did not still exist;
his experience of other women showed him that their love outlived their
anger, whether the same had been h