he grew more and more uneasy.

"Well, some of them knew," he said, answering her last reproach. "And
they knew that I was jolly well quit of her! I suppose I ought to have
told you, Daphne--of course I ought--I'm sorry. But the fact was I never
wanted to think of her again. And I certainly never want to see her
again! Why, in the name of goodness, did you accept that tea-fight?"

"Because I mean to go."

"Then you'll have to go without me," was the incautious reply.

"Oh, so you're afraid of meeting her! I shall know what to think, if you
_don't_ go." Daphne sat erect, her hands clasped round her knees.

Roger made a sound of wrath, and threw his cigarette into the fire.
Then, turning round again to face her, he tried to control himself.

"Look here, Daphne, don't let us quarrel about this. I'll tell you
everything you want to know--the whole beastly story. But it can't be
pleasant to me to meet a woman who treated me as she did--and it
oughtn't to be pleasant to you either. It was like her audacity to come
this afternoon."

"She simply wants to get hold of you again!" Daphne sprang up as she
spoke with a violent movement, her face blazing.

"Nonsense! she came out of nothing in the world but curiosity, and
because she likes making people uncomfortable. She knew very well mother
and I didn't want her!"

But the more he tried to persuade her the more determined was Daphne to
pay the promised visit, and that he should pay it with her. He gave way
at last, and she allowed herself to be soothed and caressed. Then, when
she seemed to have recovered herself, he gave her a tragic-comic account
of the three weeks' engagement, and the manner in which it had been
broken off: caustic enough, one might have thought, to satisfy the most
unfriendly listener. Daphne heard it all quietly.

Then her maid came, and she donned a tea-gown.

When Roger returned, after dressing, he found her still abstracted.

"I suppose you kissed her?" she said abruptly, as they stood by the fire
together.

He broke out in laughter and annoyance, and called her a little goose,
with his arm round her.

But she persisted. "You did kiss her?"

"Well, of course I did! What else is one engaged for?"

"I'm certain she wished for a great deal of kissing!" said Daphne,
quickly.

Roger was silent. Suddenly there swept through him the memory of the
scene in the orchard, and with it an admission--wrung, as it were, from
a wholly unwilling self--