e gasped.

"Certainly I knew."

"Then--then----"

"Then why wasn't I suitably impressed?" he suggested drily.

She sprang to her feet.

"Oh! you are intolerable!" she exclaimed hotly. "You know I didn't mean
that!"

He regarded her quite placidly.

"You did. That is precisely what you were thinking. Only you funked
putting it into plain words."

He got up and came to her side and stood looking down at her.

"Isn't it a fact?" he insisted. "Isn't it?"

Magda looked up, tried to answer in the negative and failed. He had
spoken the simple truth and she knew it. But none the less she hated him
for it--hated him for driving her up into a corner and trying to force
an acknowledgment from her. She remained obstinately silent.

He turned away with a short, amused laugh.

"So you haven't even the courage of your convictions," he commented.

Magda clenched her hands, driving the nails hard into the soft palms of
them. He was an absolute boor, this man who had come to her rescue in
the fog! He was taking a brutal advantage of their relative positions to
speak to her as no man had ever dared to speak to her before. Or woman
either! Even old Lady Arabella would hardly have thrust the naked truth
so savagely under her eyes.

And now he had as good as told her that she was a coward! Well, at least
he should not have the satisfaction of finding he was right in that
respect. She walked straight up to him, her small head held high, in her
dark eyes a smouldering fire of fierce resentment.

"So that is what you think, is it?" she said in a low voice of bitter
anger. "Well, I _have_ the courage of my convictions." She paused. Then,
with an effort: "Yes, I did think you weren't 'suitably impressed,' as
you put it. You are perfectly right."

He threw her a swift glance of surprise. Presumably he hadn't
anticipated such a candid acknowledgment, but even so he showed no
disposition to lay down the probe.

"You didn't think it possible that anyone could meet the Wielitzska
without regarding the event as a piece of stupendous good luck and being
appropriately overjoyed, did you?" he pursued relentlessly.

Magda pressed her lips together. Then, with an effort:

"No," she admitted.

"And so, just because I treated you as I would any other woman, and made
no pretence of fatuous delight over your presence here, you supposed I
must be ignorant of your identity? Was that it?"

Magda writhed under the cool, ironical questioni