'No, that is wickedness,' said Renee.

She was sensible that conversation betrayed her, and Nevil's apparently
deliberate pursuit signified to her that he must be aware of his mastery,
and she resented it, and stumbled into pitfalls whenever she opened her
lips. It seemed to be denied to them to utter what she meant, if indeed
she had a meaning in speaking, save to hurt herself cruelly by wounding
the man who had caught her in the toils: and so long as she could imagine
that she was the only one hurt, she was the braver and the harsher for
it; but at the sight of Nevil in pain her heart relented and shifted, and
discovering it to be so weak as to be almost at his mercy, she defended
it with an aggressive unkindness, for which, in charity to her sweeter
nature, she had to ask his pardon, and then had to fib to give reasons
for her conduct, and then to pretend to herself that her pride was
humbled by him; a most humiliating round, constantly recurring; the worse
for the reflection that she created it. She attempted silence. Nevil
spoke, and was like the magical piper: she was compelled to follow him
and dance the round again, with the wretched thought that it must
resemble coquettry. Nevil did not think so, but a very attentive observer
now upon the scene, and possessed of his half of the secret, did, and
warned him. Rosamund Culling added that the French girl might be only an
unconscious coquette, for she was young. The critic would not undertake
to pronounce on her suggestion, whether the candour apparent in merely
coquettish instincts was not more dangerous than a battery of the arts of
the sex. She had heard Nevil's frank confession, and seen Renee twice,
when she tried in his service, though not greatly wishing for success, to
stir the sensitive girl for an answer to his attachment. Probably she
went to work transparently, after the insular fashion of opening a
spiritual mystery with the lancet. Renee suffered herself to be probed
here and there, and revealed nothing of the pain of the operation. She
said to Nevil, in Rosamund's hearing:

'Have you the sense of honour acute in your country?' Nevil inquired for
the apropos.

'None,' said she.

Such pointed insolence disposed Rosamund to an irritable antagonism,
without reminding her that she had given some cause for it.

Renee said to her presently: 'He saved my brother's life'; the apropos
being as little perceptible as before.

Her voice dropped to her swe