vidual. But--your
hostility is to me, personally."

I raised my eyebrows, coldly interrogative.

"Perhaps," he went on calmly--"perhaps I was a fool here on the
roof--the night before last. If I said anything that I should not, I ask
your pardon. If it is not that, I think you ought to ask mine!"

I was angry enough then.

"There can be only one opinion about your conduct," I retorted warmly.
"It was worse than brutal. It--it was unspeakable. I have no words for
it--except that I loathe it--and you."

He was very grim by this time. "I have heard you say something like that
before--only I was not the unfortunate in that case."

"Oh!" I was choking.

"Under different circumstances I should be the last person to recall
anything so--personal. But the circumstances are unusual." He took an
angry step toward me. "Will you tell me what I have done? Or shall I go
down and ask the others?"

"You wouldn't dare," I cried, "or I will tell them what you did! How you
waylaid me on those stairs there, and forced your caresses, your kisses,
on me! Oh, I could die with shame!"

The silence that followed was as unexpected as it was ominous. I knew
he was staring at me, and I was furious to find myself so emotional, so
much more the excited of the two. Finally, I looked up.

"You can not deny it," I said, a sort of anti-climax.

"No." He was very quiet, very grim, quite composed. "No," he repeated
judicially. "I do not deny it."

He did not? Or he would not? Which?

Chapter XIV. ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE

Dal had been acting strangely all day. Once, early in the evening, when
I had doubled no trump, he led me a club without apology, and later
on, during his dummy, I saw him writing our names on the back of an
envelope, and putting numbers after them. At my earliest opportunity I
went to Max.

"There is something the matter with Dal, Max," I volunteered. "He
has been acting strangely all day, and just now he was making out a
list--names and numbers."

"You're to blame for that, Kit," Max said seriously. "You put washing
soda instead of baking soda in those biscuits today, and he thinks he is
a steam laundry. Those are laundry lists he's making out. He asked me a
little while ago if I wanted a domestic finish."

Yes, I had put washing soda in the biscuits. The book said soda, and how
is one to know which is meant?

"I do not think you are calculated for a domestic finish," I said coldly
as I turned away. "In any case