He gasped.  ‘Good Lord!’ he said unaffectedly.  And then, ’Why, you are the girl who yesterday would have me kill him!’ he cried with indignation; ’who came out of town to meet me, brought me in, and would have matched me with him as coolly as ever sportsman set cock in pit!  Ay, you!  And now you blame me!  My girl, blame yourself!  Call yourself Cain, if you please!’

‘I do,’ she said unblenching.  ’But I have my excuse.  God forgive me none the less!’ Her eyes filled as she said it.  ’I had and have my excuse.  But you—­a gentleman!  What part had you in this?  Who were you to kill your fellow-creature—­at the word of a distraught girl?’

Sir George saw his opening and jumped for it viciously.  ’I fear you honour me too much,’ he said, in the tone of elaborate politeness, which was most likely to embarrass a woman in her position.  ’Most certainly you do, if you are really under the impression that I fought Mr. Dunborough on your account, my girl!’

‘Did you not?’ she stammered; and the new-born doubt in her eyes betrayed her trouble.

’Mr. Dunborough struck me, because I would not let him fire on the crowd,’ Sir George explained, blandly raising his quizzing glass, but not using it.  ’That was why I fought him.  And that is my excuse.  You see, my dear,’ he continued familiarly, ’we have each an excuse.  But I am not a hypocrite.’

‘Why do you call me that?’ she exclaimed; distress and shame at the mistake she had made contending with her anger.

‘Because, my pretty Methodist,’ he answered coolly, ’your hate and your love are too near neighbours.  Cursing and nursing, killing and billing, come not so nigh one another in my vocabulary.  But with women—­some women—­it is different.’

Her cheeks burned with shame, but her eyes flashed passion.  ’If I were a lady,’ she cried, her voice low but intense, ’you would not dare to insult me.’

‘If you were a lady,’ he retorted with easy insolence, ’I would kiss you and make you my wife, my dear.  In the meantime, and as you are not—­give up nursing young sparks and go home to your mother.  Don’t roam the roads at night, and avoid travelling-chariots as you would the devil.  Or the next knight-errant you light upon may prove something ruder than—­Captain Berkeley!’

‘You are not Captain Berkeley?’

‘No.’

She stared at him, breathing hard.  Then, ’I was a fool, and I pay for it in insult,’ she said.

‘Be a fool no longer then,’ he retorted, his good-humour restored by the success of his badinage; ’and no man will have the right to insult you, ma belle.’

‘I will never give you the right!’ she cried with intention.

‘It is rather a question of Mr. Dunborough,’ he answered, smiling superior, and flirting his spy-glass to and fro with his fingers.  ’Say the same to him, and—­but are you going, my queen?  What, without ceremony?’

‘I am not a lady, and noblesse oblige does not apply to me,’ she cried.  And she closed the door in his face—­sharply, yet without noise.