couldn't. How could I be so silly, and vain, and presuming, as to think
of--of--of--"

She stopped here, as might be expected, and, if the room had been light
enough, she might have seen a shadow fall on Oglethorpe's face, as he
prompted her.

"Of what?"

Her eyes fell. "Of what Sir Dugald said," she ended, in a troubled
half-whisper.

There was a slight pause, in which both pairs of eyes looked
down--Theodora's upon the rug of tiger-skin at her feet, Oglethorpe's at
Theodora herself. They were treading upon dangerous ground, he knew, and
yet in the midst of his fierce anger at his weakness, he was conscious
of a regret--a contemptible regret, he told himself--that the eyes she
had raised to his own a moment ago, had been so very clear and
guilelessly honest in their accordance with the declaration her lips had
made.

"But, my dear Theodora," he at length broke the silence by saying,
carelessly, "why should we trouble ourselves about that elderly Goth, or
Vandal, if you choose--Sir Dugald? Who does trouble themselves about Sir
Dugald, and his amiably ponderous jocoseness? Not Lady Throckmorton, I
am sure; not society in general, you must know; consequently, let us
treat Sir Dugald with silent contempt, in a glorious consciousness of
our own spotless innocence."

He was half uneasy under his satirical indifference; though he was so
accustomed to conceal his thoughts under indifference and satire, he was
scarcely sure enough of himself at this minute; but, despite this, he
carried out the assumed mood pretty well.

"We have no need to be afraid of Sir Dugald's Vandalism, if we have no
fear of ourselves, and, considering, as you so very justly observed,
that it is quite impossible for us to be silly, and vain, and presuming
toward each other. I think we must be quite safe. I believe you said it
would be impossible, Theodora?"

Just one breath's space, and Theodora North looked up at him, as it were
through the influence of an electric flash of recognition. There was a
wild, sweet, troubled color on her cheeks, and her lips were trembling;
her whole face seemed to tremble; her very eyes had a varying tremulous
glow.

"Quite impossible, wasn't it, Theodora?" he repeated, and though he had
meant it for nothing more than a careless, daring speech, his voice
changed in defiance of him, and altered, or seemed to alter, both words
and their meaning. What, in the name of madness, he would have been rash
enough to say