w moments with something of constraint. "And how have
you been--amusing yourself?"

"I?" Carelessly he made reply. "I have been playing around with Ina Rose
chiefly--to save us both from boredom."

There sounded a faint jeering note behind the carelessness of his voice.
Avery quickened her pace almost unconsciously.

"It's all right," said Piers. "There's been no damage done."

"You don't know that," said Avery, without looking at him.

"Yes, I do. She'll marry Dick Guyes. I told her she would the night
before they left, and she didn't say she wouldn't. He's a much better
chap than I am, you know," said Piers, with an odd touch of sincerity.
"And he's head over ears in love with her into the bargain."

"Are you trying to excuse yourself?" said Avery.

He laughed. "What for? For not marrying Ina Rose? I assure you I never
meant to marry her."

"For trifling with her." Avery's voice was hard, but he affected not
to notice.

"A game's a game," he said lightly.

Avery stopped very suddenly and faced round upon him. "That sort of
game," she said, and her voice throbbed with the intensity of her
indignation, "is monstrous--is contemptible--a game that none but
blackguards ever stoop to play!"

Piers stood still. "Great Scott!" he said softly.

Avery swept on. Once roused, she was ruthless in her arraignment.

"Men--some men--find it amusing to go through life breaking women's
hearts just for the sport of the thing. They regard it as a pastime, in
the same light as fox-hunting or cards or racing. And when the game is
over, they laugh among themselves and say what fools women are. And so
they may be, and so they are, many of them. But is it honourable, is it
manly, to take advantage of their weakness? I never thought you were that
sort. I thought you were at least honest."

"Did you?" said Piers.

He was holding himself very straight and stiff, just as he had held
himself on that day in the winter when she had so indignantly intervened
to save his dog from his ungovernable fury. But he did not seem to resent
her attack, and in spite of herself Avery's own resentment began to wane.
She suddenly remembered that her very protest was an admission of
intimacy of which he would not scruple to avail himself if it suited his
purpose, and with this thought in her mind she paused in confusion.

"Won't you finish?" said Piers.

She turned to leave him. "That's all I have to say."

He put out a restraining hand. "Then