He continued to look at her for several seconds, intently but not sternly.  Then very quietly he spoke.  “Sylvia, if things go wrong, if the servants upset you, come to me about it!  Don’t go to Guy!”

She understood the reference in a moment.  The flush turned to flaming crimson that mounted in a wave to her forehead.  She drew back from him, her head high.

“And if Schafen or any other man comes to you with offensive gossip regarding my behaviour, please kick him as he deserves—­next time!” she said.  “And then—­if you think it necessary—­come to me for an explanation!”

She spoke with supreme scorn, every word a challenge.  She was more angry in that moment than she could remember that she had ever been before.  How dared he hear Schafen’s evidence against her, and then coolly take her thus to task?

The memory of his kiss swept back upon her as she spoke, that kiss that had so cruelly wounded her, that kiss that had finally rent the veil away from her quivering heart.  She stood before him with clenched hands.  If he had attempted to kiss her then, she would have struck him.

But he did not move.  He stood, looking at her, looking at her, till at last her wide eyes wavered and sank before his own.  He spoke then, an odd inflection in his voice.

“Why are you so angry?”

Her two fists were pressed hard against her sides.  She was aware of a weakening of her self-control, and she fought with all her strength to retain it.  She could not speak for a second or two, but it was not fear that restrained her.

“Tell me!” he said.  “Why are you angry?”

The colour was dying slowly out of her face; a curious chill had followed the sudden flame.  “It is your own fault,” she said.

“How—­my fault?” Burke’s voice was wholly free from any sort of emotion; but his question held insistence notwithstanding.

She answered it almost in spite of herself.  “For making me hate you.”

He made a slight movement as of one who shifts his hold upon some chafing creature to strengthen his grip.  “How have I done that?” he said.

She answered him in a quick, breathless rush of words that betrayed her failing strength completely.  “By doubting me—­by being jealous and showing it—­by—­by—­by insulting me!”

“What?” he said.

She turned from him sharply and walked away, battling with herself.  “You know what I mean,” she said tremulously.  “You know quite well what I mean.  You were angry yesterday—­angry because Hans Schafen—­a servant—­had told you something that made you distrust me.  And because you were angry, you—­you—­you insulted me!” She turned round upon him suddenly with eyes of burning accusation.  She was fighting, fighting, with all her might, to hide from him that frightened, quivering thing that she herself had recognized but yesterday.  If it had been a plague-spot, she could not have guarded it more jealously.  Its presence scared her.  Her every instinct was to screen it somehow, somehow, from those keen eyes.  For he was so horribly strong, so shrewd, so merciless!