ere now was the tremulous excitement? She was
magnificently at her ease and commanded him to speak, if he had anything
to say. If not, let him hold his peace.

But he was proud and obstinate too. They came to a conflict there in the
little room--the forgotten cab waiting outside, the forgotten Mina
beginning to stir in her bed as voices dimly reached her ears and she
awoke to the question--where was Cecily?

"If we're to be friends," Harry began, "I must hear no more of what you
said this afternoon. You asked me to be a pensioner, you proposed
yourself to be----"

He did not finish. The word was not handy, or he wished to spare her.

She showed no signs of receiving mercy.

"Very well," she said, smiling. "If you knew everything, you wouldn't
talk like that. I suppose you've no idea what it cost me?"

"What it cost you?"

She broke into a scornful laugh. "You know what it really meant. Still
you've only a scolding for me! How funny that you see one half and not
the other! But you've given me a very pleasant evening, Cousin Harry."

"You must leave my life alone," he insisted brusquely.

"Oh, yes, for the future. I've nothing left to offer, have I? I have
been--refused!" She seemed to exult in the abandonment of her candor.

He looked at her angrily, almost dangerously. For a passing moment she
had a sensation of that physical fear from which no moral courage can
wholly redeem the weak in body. But she showed none of it; her pose was
unchanged; only the hand on which her head rested shook a little. And
she began to laugh. "You look as if you were going to hit me," she said.

"Oh, you do talk nonsense!" he groaned. But she was too much for him; he
laughed too. She had spoken with such a grand security. "If you tell me
to walk out of the door I shall go."

"Well, in five minutes. It's very late."

"Oh, we weren't bred in Bayswater," he reminded her.

"I was--in Chelsea."

"So you say. I think in heaven--no, Olympus--really."

"Have you said what you wanted to say, Cousin Harry?"

"I suppose you hadn't the least idea what you were doing?"

"I was as cool as you were when you gave me Blent."

"You're cool enough now, anyhow," he admitted, in admiration of her
parry.

"Quite, thanks." The hand behind her head trembled sorely. His eyes were
on her, and a confusion threatened to overwhelm the composure of which
she boasted.

"I gave you Blent because it was yours."

"What I offered you is mine."

"B