"No."

"Then, if you will come out-of-doors, where there is less likelihood of
interruption than in the house, I will wait for you here."

She went silently down the picture-gallery, half astonished to find
herself doing his bidding. She put on her walking things mechanically,
and came back in a few minutes to find him standing where she had left
him. In silence they went down-stairs, and through the piazza with its
flowering orange-trees, out into the gardens, where, on the stone
balustrade, the peacocks were attitudinizing and conversing in the high
key in which they always proclaim a change of weather and their innate
vulgarity to the world. Charles led the way towards a little rushing
brook which divided the gardens from the park.

"I think you must have had a very low opinion of me beforehand to say
what you did yesterday," he remarked, suddenly.

"I was angry," said Ruth. "However true what I said may have been, I had
no right to say it to--a comparative stranger. That is why I repeat that
it would be better not to make matters worse by mentioning the subject
again. It is sure to annoy us both. Let it rest."

"Not yet," said Charles, dryly. "As a comparative stranger, I want to
know,"--stopping and facing her--"exactly what you mean by saying that
she, Lady Grace, did not understand the rules of the game."

"I cannot put it in other words," said Ruth, her courage rising as she
felt that a battle was imminent.

"Perhaps I can for you. Perhaps you meant to say that you believed I was
in the habit of amusing myself at other people's expense; that--I see
your difficulty in finding the right words--that it was my evil sport
and pastime to--shall we say--raise expectations which it was not my
intention to fulfil?"

"It is disagreeably put," said Ruth, reddening a little; "but possibly I
did mean something of that kind."

"And how have you arrived at such an uncharitable opinion of a
comparative stranger?" asked Charles, quietly enough, but his light eyes
flashing.

She did not answer.

"You are not a child, to echo the opinion of others," he went on. "You
look as if you judged for yourself. What have I done since I met you
first, three months ago, to justify you in holding me in contempt?"

"I did not say I held you in contempt."

"You must, though, if you think me capable of such meanness."

Silence again.

"You have pushed me into saying more than I meant," said Ruth at last;
"at least you have said