le for me to tell--anything to you."

But his face did not soften. "I wish you to go to Kingsmead, Brigit."

"I will not go to Kingsmead, Victor."

"Then," his anger now finally blazed up, "I can say only--good-bye."

Her face was as white and as hard as his own, and being a woman she
could even laugh.

"_Adieu, donc--Beau-pere!_"

"What do you mean by that? You will not--surely you cannot mean that you
will----"

"But I do!" He himself had suggested a revenge to her. "If you and I
quarrel, I will most certainly not marry your son."

For a moment the father in him dominated the mere man, and his eloquence
was great as he reproached her.

"No--no, I am not cruel," she answered cruelly, her anger reinforced by
a wave of jealousy anent Theo, "but as I do not love him, why should I
marry him? And this kind of thing had far better cease. After all, you
care for him far more than you care for me."

"_Grand Dieu!_"

"Yes, of course you do," she went on in the tone of gentle,
unimpassioned reason that women sometimes use in violent anger, to the
utter amazement and undoing of their male opponents. "And moreover, I
daresay if I really loved you as much as I thought I did, I should be
unable to refuse to do what you wish about my mother."

Joyselle's face was very white.

"What do you mean? Do you mean that your love for me was a mere caprice,
and that--it has gone?"

His agony was unconcealed, and as she gazed she smiled, for her own
torture was nearly unbearable.

"I shouldn't like to say it was only a caprice----" She hesitated, and he
sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

Suddenly he rose and seizing her arm roughly, gave her another cue,
which she remorselessly and instantly took.

"There is someone else," he cried, utterly forgetting that the very day
before she had loved him madly, "you love some other man. Tell me who it
is!"

And with the extraordinary fortitude common to fanatics and furious
women, she smiled and answered:

"Perhaps! _Tout passe, mon cher._"

It was a cheap and melodramatic bit of acting, and any unprejudiced
onlooker must have seen the agony in her face, but Joyselle was blinded
by his own pain and fled from the room without another word.

She heard a door slam and knew that he had gone out. And the world came
to an end for her.

It was about six o'clock, and Tommy had gone out with Theo. They would
not be back until about eight.

Felicite, too, was out. Sh