’Far too handsome—­seeing that I have no claim on you, Sir George, and have only put you to great expense.’

‘Pooh!  Pooh!’

‘And—­trouble.  A vast deal of trouble,’ she repeated in an odd tone of raillery, while her eyes, grown hard and mocking, raked him mercilessly.  ’So much for so little!  I could not—­I could not accept it.  A hundred guineas a year, Sir George, from one in your position to one in mine, would only lay me open to the tongue of slander.  You had better say—­fifty.’

‘Oh, no!’

’Or—­thirty, I am sure thirty were ample!  Say thirty guineas a year, dear sir; and leave me my character.’

‘Nonsense,’ he answered, a trifle discomfited.  Strange, she was seizing her old position.  The weapon he had wrought for her punishment was being turned against himself.

‘Or, I don’t know that thirty is not too much!’ she continued, her eyes unnaturally bright, her voice keen as a razor.’  ’Twould have been enough if offered through your lawyers.  But at your own mouth, Sir George, ten shillings a week should do, and handsomely!  Which reminds me—­it was a kind thought to come yourself to see me; I wonder why you did.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘to be frank, it was Dr. Addington—­’

’Oh, Dr. Addington—­Dr. Addington suggested it!  Because I fancied—­it could not give you pleasure to see me like this?’ she continued with a flashing eye, her passion for a brief moment breaking forth.  ’Or to go back a month or two and call me child?  Or to speak to me as to your chambermaid?  Or even to give me ten shillings a week?’

‘No,’ he said gravely; ‘perhaps not, my dear.’

She winced and her eyes flashed; but she controlled herself.  ’Still, I shall take your ten shillings a week,’ she said.  ’And—­and is that all?  Or is there anything else?’

‘Only this,’ he said firmly.  ’You’ll please to remember that the ten shillings a week is of your own choosing.  You’ll do me that justice at least.  A hundred guineas a year was the allowance I proposed.  And—­I bet a guinea you ask for it, my dear, before the year is out!’

She was like a tigress outraged; she writhed under the insult.  And yet, because to give vent to her rage were also to bare her heart to his eyes, she had to restrain herself, and endure even this with a scarlet cheek.  She had thought to shame him by accepting the money he offered; by accepting it in the barest form.  The shame was hers; it did not seem to touch him a whit.  At last, ‘You are mistaken,’ she answered, in a voice she strove to render steady.  ’I shall not!  And now, if there is nothing more, sir—­’

‘There is,’ he said.  ‘Are you sufficiently punished?’

She looked at him wildly—­suddenly, irresistibly compelled to do so by a new tone in his voice.  ‘Punished!’ she stammered, almost inaudibly.  ‘For what?’

‘Do you not know?’

‘No,’ she muttered, her heart fluttering strangely.