“Are you trying to excuse yourself?” said Avery.

He laughed.  “What for?  For not marrying Ina Rose?  I assure you I never meant to marry her.”

“For trifling with her.”  Avery’s voice was hard, but he affected not to notice.

“A game’s a game,” he said lightly.

Avery stopped very suddenly and faced round upon him.  “That sort of game,” she said, and her voice throbbed with the intensity of her indignation, “is monstrous—­is contemptible—­a game that none but blackguards ever stoop to play!”

Piers stood still.  “Great Scott!” he said softly.

Avery swept on.  Once roused, she was ruthless in her arraignment.

“Men—­some men—­find it amusing to go through life breaking women’s hearts just for the sport of the thing.  They regard it as a pastime, in the same light as fox-hunting or cards or racing.  And when the game is over, they laugh among themselves and say what fools women are.  And so they may be, and so they are, many of them.  But is it honourable, is it manly, to take advantage of their weakness?  I never thought you were that sort.  I thought you were at least honest.”

“Did you?” said Piers.

He was holding himself very straight and stiff, just as he had held himself on that day in the winter when she had so indignantly intervened to save his dog from his ungovernable fury.  But he did not seem to resent her attack, and in spite of herself Avery’s own resentment began to wane.  She suddenly remembered that her very protest was an admission of intimacy of which he would not scruple to avail himself if it suited his purpose, and with this thought in her mind she paused in confusion.

“Won’t you finish?” said Piers.

She turned to leave him.  “That’s all I have to say.”

He put out a restraining hand.  “Then may I say something?”

The request was so humbly uttered that she could not refuse it.  She remained where she was.

“I should like you to know,” said Piers, “that I have never given Miss Rose or any other girl with whom I have flirted the faintest shadow of a reason for believing that I was in earnest.  That is the truth—­on my honour.”

“I wonder if—­they—­would say the same,” said Avery.

He shrugged his shoulders.  “No one ever before accused me of being a lady-killer.  As to your other charge against me, it was not I who deceived my grandfather.  It was he who deceived himself.”

“Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?” said Avery, in a low voice.

She was beginning to wish that she had not spoken with such vehemence.  After all, what were his delinquencies to her?  She almost expected him to ask the question; but he did not.

“Do you mind explaining?” he said.

With an effort she made response.  “You can’t say it was honourable to let your grandfather come home in the belief that you wanted to become engaged to Miss Rose.”