“That’s natural enough; but it’s equally natural that it shouldn’t have passed from mine.”  He came close to her and offered it again.  “Do take it.”

“Put it on the table.  Please.”

“That isn’t the same thing.  I want you to take it.  I want to put it into your own hand, as you put it into mine.”

She remembered that she had put it into his hand by closing his fingers forcibly upon it, and hastened to prevent anything of that kind now.  She took it unwillingly, holding it in both hands as if it were a casket.

“That’s done,” he said, with satisfaction.  “You can’t imagine what a relief it is to have it off my mind.”

“I’m sorry you should have felt about it like that.”

“You would have felt like that yourself, if you were a man owing money to a woman—­and especially a woman who was your—­enemy.”

“Oh!” She cowered, as if he had threatened her.

“I repeat the word,” he laughed, uneasily.  “Any one is my enemy who comes between me and Evie.  You’ll forgive me if I seem brutal—­”

“Yes, I’ll forgive you.  I’ll even accept the word.”  She was pale and nervous, with the kind of nervousness that kept her smiling and still, but sent the queer, lambent flashes into her eyes.  “Let us say it.  I’m your enemy, and you pay me the money so as to feel free to strike me as hard as you can.”

He kept to his laugh, but there was a forced ring in it.

“I don’t call that a fair way of putting it, but—­”

“I don’t see that the way of putting it matters, so long as it’s the fact.”

“It’s the fact twisted in a very ingenious fashion.  I should say that—­since I’m going to marry Evie—­I want—­naturally enough—­to feel that—­that”—­he stammered and reddened, seeking a word that would not convey an insult—­“to feel—­that I—­met other claims—­as well as I could.”

He looked her in the eyes with significant directness.  His steady gaze, in which she saw—­or thought she saw—­glints of challenge toned down by gleams of regret, seemed to say, “Whatever I owe you other than money is out of my power to pay.”  She fully understood that he did not repudiate the debt; he was only telling her that since he had given all to Evie, his heart was bankrupt.  What angered her and kept her silent, fearing she would say something she would afterward repent, was the implication that she was putting forth her claim for fulfilment.

He still confronted her, with an air of flying humiliation as a flag of defiance, while she stood holding the packet in both hands, when the door was pushed open, and Evie, radiant from her walk in the cold air and fine in autumn furs and plumage, fluttered in.  Her blue eyes opened wide on the two in the bay-window, but she did not advance from the threshold.

“Dear me, dear me!” she twittered, in her dry little fashion, before they had time to realize the fact that she was there.  “I hope I’m not interrupting you.”