But I have a right to speak, Jaff Chayne. Haven't I?"

Jaffery's mind went back to the Bedlam of the slithering cargo. He
turned to Doria.

"Let her say what she wants."

"I want nothing!" cried Liosha. "Nothing for myself. Not a thing! But I
want Jaff Chayne to be happy. You think you know all he has done for
you, but you don't. You don't know a bit. They offered him thousands of
pounds to go to Persia, and he would have come back a great man, and he
didn't go because of you."

"Persia? I never heard of that," said Doria.

"The job didn't suit me," Jaffery growled.

"And you told her all about it?"

"No, he didn't," said Liosha. "Hilary told me to-day."

"I take your word for it," said Doria coldly. "It only shows that I'm
under one more obligation than I thought to Mr. Chayne."

From what I could gather, the word "obligation" infuriated Liosha. She
uttered an avalanche of foolish things. And Jaffery (for what is man in
a woman's battle but an impotent spectator?) looked in silence from one:
to the other; from the little ivory, black and white Tanagra figure to
the great full creature whom he had seen, but a few days ago, with the
salt spray in her hair and the wind in her vestments. And at last she
said:

"If I were a woman like you and wouldn't marry a man who loved me like
Jaff Chayne, and who had done for me all that Jaff Chayne had done for
you, I'd pray to God to blast me and fill my body with worms."

* * * * *

And then she burst out of the room, and, like a child seeking
protection, came and threw herself down by my side.

What happened when she left them I know, because Jaffery kept me up till
three o'clock in the morning narrating it to me, while he poured into
his Gargantuan self hogsheads of whisky and soda.

* * * * *

When Liosha had gone, they eyed one another for a while in embarrassing
silence, until Doria spoke:

"She misunderstood--when she came in. Quite natural. It was your touch
of pity that I couldn't bear. I wasn't repelling you, as she seemed to
think."

"It cut me to the heart to see you in such grief," said Jaffery. "I only
thought of comforting you."

"I know." She sat on a chair by the window and looked out at the pouring
rain.

"Tell me," she said, without turning round, "what did she mean by saying
she had the right to interfere in your affairs?"

"She saved my life at the risk of her own," replied Ja