y are not _gentlemen_."

The taunt went home. The beauty of Mr. Ryfe's face was at no time
in its expression--certainly not now. Miss Bruce, too, seemed well
disposed to fight it out. Obviously it must be war to the knife!

"Did you get my letter?" said he, in low, distinct syllables. "Do you
believe I mean what I say? Do you believe I mean what I _write_?"

She smiled scornfully. A panting couple who stopped just in front of
them imagined they were interrupting a flirtation, and, doing as they
would be done by, twirled on.

"I treat all begging-letters alike," answered Maud, "and make yours no
exception, because they contain threats and abuse into the bargain.
You have chosen the wrong person to try and frighten, Mr. Ryfe. It
only shows how little you understand my character."

He would have caught at a straw even then. "How little chance I have
had of studying it!" he exclaimed. "It is not my fault. Heaven knows
I have been kept in ignorance, uncertainty, suspense, till it almost
drove me mad. Miss Bruce, you have known the worst of me; only the
worst of me, indeed, as yet."

The man was pleading for his life, you see. Was it pitiable, or only
ludicrous, that his voice and manner had to be toned down to the staid
pitch of general conversation, that a fat and happy German was puffing
at a cornet-a-piston within arm's length of him? But for a quiver of
his lip, any bystander might have supposed he was asking Miss Bruce if
he should bring her an ice.

"I have seen enough!" she replied, very resolutely, "and I am
determined to see no more. Mr. Ryfe, if you have no pleasanter
subjects of conversation than yourself and your arrangements, I
will ask you to move for an instant that I may pass and find Mrs.
Stanmore."

Lord Bearwarden was at the other end of the room, looking about
apparently for some object of unusual interest. Perhaps Miss Bruce saw
him--as ladies do see people without turning their eyes--and the sight
fortified her resolution.

"Then you defy me!" whispered Tom, in the low suppressed notes that
denote rage, concentrated and intensified for being kept down. "By
heaven, Miss Bruce, you shall repent it! I'll show you up! I'll expose
you! I'll have neither pity nor remorse! You think you've won a heavy
stake, do you? Hooked a big fish, and need only pull him ashore? _He_
sha'n't be deceived! _He_ shall know you for what you are! He shall,
by----!"

The adjuration with which Mr. Ryfe concluded this