He came swiftly to meet her, so swiftly that she was for the moment deceived, and fancied that he was about to greet her with his customary bantering gallantry.  But he did not lift her fingers to his lips after his usual gay fashion.  He only held her proffered hand very tightly for several seconds without verbal greeting of any sort.

Suddenly he began to speak, and as he did so she seemed to see a hundred wrinkles spring into being on his yellow face.  “I have something to say to you, Mrs. Musgrave,” he said.  “And it’s something so particularly beastly that I funk saying it.  We have always been such pals, you and I, and that makes it all the harder.”

He broke off, his shrewd glance flashing over her, keen and elusive as a rapier.  Daisy faced him quite fully and fearlessly.  The possibility of a conflict in this quarter had occurred to her before.  She would not shirk it, but she was determined that it should be as brief as possible.

“Being pals doesn’t entitle you to go trespassing, Nick,” she said.

“I know that,” said Nick, speaking very rapidly.  “None better.  But I am not thinking of you only, though I hate to make you angry.  Mrs. Musgrave—­Daisy—­I want to ask you, and you can’t refuse to answer.  What are you doing?  What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, speaking coldly.  “And anyhow I can’t stop to listen to you.  I haven’t time.  I think you had better go.”

“You must listen,” Nick said.  She caught the grim note of determination in his voice, and was aware of the whole force of his personality flung suddenly against her.  “Daisy,” he said, “you are to look upon me as Will’s representative.  I am the nearest friend he has.  Have you thought of him at all lately, stewing in those hellish Plains for your sake?  He’s such a faithful chap, you know.  Can’t you go back to him soon?  Isn’t it—­forgive me—­isn’t it a bit shabby to play this sort of game when there’s a fellow like that waiting for you and fretting his very heart out because you don’t go?”

He stopped—­his lips twitching with the vigour of his appeal.  And Daisy realised that he would have to be told the simple truth.  He would not be satisfied with less.

Very pale but quite calm, she braced herself to tell him.  “I am afraid you are pleading a lost cause,” she said, her words quiet and very distinct.  “I am never going back to him.”

“Never!” Nick moved sharply drawing close to her.  “Never?” he said again; then with abrupt vehemence, “Daisy, you don’t mean that!  You didn’t say it!”

She drew back slightly from him, but her answer was perfectly steady, rigidly determined.  “I have said it, Nick.  And I meant it.  You had better go.  You will do no good by staying to argue.  I know all that you can possibly say, and it makes no difference to me.  I have chosen.”

“What have you chosen?” he demanded.

For an instant she hesitated.  There was something almost fierce in his manner, something she had never encountered before, something that in spite of her utmost effort made her feel curiously uneasy, even apprehensive.  She had always known that there was a certain uncanny strength about Nick, but to feel the whole weight of it directed against her was a new experience.