He stood over her, a splendid accusing figure, and the excited girl beside him was bewildered by the adroitness with which he had carried the war into her own country.

“How mean!—­how ungenerous!” Her agitation would hardly let her speak coherently.  “When we were riding, you ordered me—­yes, it was practically that!—­you warned me, in a manner that nobody—­nobody —­has any right to use with me—­unless he were my fiance or my husband—­that I was not to dance with Otto Radowitz—­I was not to see so much of Mr. Sorell.  So just to show you that I was really not at your beck and call—­that you could not do exactly what you liked with me—­I danced with Mr. Radowitz last night, and I refused to dance with you.  Oh, yes, I know I was foolish—­I daresay I was in a temper too—­but how you can make that any excuse for your attack on that poor boy—­how you can make me responsible, if—­”

Her voice failed her.  But Falloden saw that he had won some advantage, and he pushed on.

“I only want to point out that a man is not exactly a stock or a stone to be played with as you played with me last night.  Those things are dangerous!  Can you deny—­that you have given me some reason to hope—­since we met again—­to hope confidently, that you might change your mind?  Would you have let me arrange those rides for you—­unknown to your friends—­would you have met me in the woods, those heavenly times—­would you have danced with me as you did—­would you have let me pay you in public every sort of attention that a man can pay to a girl, when he wants to marry her, the night of the Marmion ball—­if you had not felt something for me—­if you had not meant to give me a little hope—­to keep the thing at least uncertain?  No!—­if this business does turn out badly, I shall have remorse enough, God knows—­but you can’t escape!  If you punish me for it, if I alone am to pay the penalty, it will be not only Radowitz that has a grievance—­not only Radowitz whose life will have been spoilt!”

She turned to him—­hypnotised, subdued, by the note of fierce accusation—­by that self-pity of the egotist—­which looked out upon her from the young man’s pale face and tense bearing.

“No”—­she said trembling—­“no—­it is quite true—­I have treated you badly.  I have behaved wilfully and foolishly.  But that was no reason—­no excuse—­”

“What’s the good of talking of ’reason’—­or excuse’?” Falloden interrupted violently.  “Do you understand that I am in love with you—­and what that means to a man?  I tore myself away from Oxford, because I knew that if I stayed another day within reach of you—­after that first ride—­I should lose my class—­disappoint my father—­and injure my career.  I could think of nothing but you—­dream of nothing but you.  And I said to myself that my success—­my career—­might after all be your affair as well as mine.  And so I went.  And I’m not going to boast of what it cost me to go, knowing that other people would