Chris’s hands clenched unconsciously.  “He lied!” she repeated.  “We are not friends!  We never could be!  I—­I hate the man!”

“Then you know him well enough for that?” said Aunt Philippa.

Chris sprang to her feet with hot cheeks and blazing eyes.  “Aunt Philippa, you have no right—­you and Mrs. Pouncefort—­to—­to talk me over and discuss my acquaintances!”

“My dear child,” said Aunt Philippa, “all that passed between us was a remark made by Mrs. Pouncefort to the effect that one of her guests, Captain Rodolphe—­an old friend of yours whom she believed you had originally met at Valpre—­had just returned to Paris.  What led to the remark I do not remember.  But naturally the name recalled certain regrettable circumstances to my mind, and I felt it my duty to ask if you had been quite candid with Trevor upon the subject.  I am sincerely grieved to know that my suspicion in this respect was but too well founded.”

“He was not the man I knew at Valpre” burst forth Chris, with passionate vehemence.  “You may believe it or not; it is the truth!”

“Then, my dear,” said Aunt Philippa, with the calmness of unalterable conviction, “there must have been two men who enjoyed that privilege.”

Chris broke into a wild laugh—­a laugh that had been struggling for utterance for the past hour.

“Two!  Why, there were a dozen at least, some soldiers, some fishermen!  Ask Trevor!  He can tell you all about them—­if he thinks it worth while!”

“And yet you have not mentioned Captain Rodolphe to him?” said Aunt Philippa.  Her eyes were fixed unsparingly upon the girl’s face, and she saw the colour dying away as swiftly as it had risen.  “That is strange,” she remarked, with emphasis.

“It is not strange!” flashed back Chris. The laugh had gone from her lips, leaving them white, but she faced her adversary unflinchingly.  It was open war now—­a fierce and bitter struggle for the mastery, for which she knew herself to be ill-equipped, but in which she must fight to the last.  She knew that Aunt Philippa had always regarded her with cold dislike, and it dawned upon her in that moment that now—­now that her position was assured, now that she was rich and popular and the wife of a man who was universally honoured in that great world of society in which her aunt had always striven for a leading place—­the dislike had turned to a cruel jealousy that demanded her downfall.  And she was horribly at her mercy; deep in her heart she knew that also, but she would not own it, even to herself.  Aunt Philippa had not yet unmasked the truth.  Until she succeeded in doing so, all was not lost.

“It is not strange,” she repeated, and this time she spoke quietly, summoning all her strength to the unequal contest.  “Captain Rodolphe was not of sufficient importance to mention to Trevor.  Besides—­”

“Although you hate him so bitterly!” Aunt Philippa reminded her.