After brief reflection Derek admitted that.  As nearly as he could recall the incident at Mrs. Bayford’s dinner-party, he recounted it.

“You see,” he explained, in summing up, “that, as a snobbish person, she could hardly be expected to forgive you for forgetting her, when she had been introduced to you four times in a season.  She not unnaturally fancied you forgot her on purpose, so to speak—­”

“I suppose I did,” she murmured, penitently.

“What?” he asked, with sudden curiosity.  “Would you—­”

“I wouldn’t now.  I used to then.  Everybody did it, when people were introduced to us whom we didn’t want to know.  I’ve done it when it wasn’t necessary even from that point of view—­out of a kind of sport, a kind of wantonness.  I’ve really forgotten about Mrs. Bayford now—­ everything except her face—­but I dare say I remembered perfectly well, at the time.  It would have been nothing unusual if I had.”

“In that case,” he said, slowly, “you can’t be surprised—­”

“I’m not,” she hastened to say.  “If Mrs. Bayford retaliates, now that she has the power, she’s within her right—­a right which scarcely any woman would forego.  It was perfectly natural for Mrs. Bayford to speak ill of me; and it was equally natural for you to spring to my defence.  You’d have sprung to the defence of any one—­”

“No, no,” he interjected, hurriedly.

“Of any one whom you—­respected, as I hope you respect me.  You’ve offered me,” she went on, her eyes filling with sudden tears—­“you’ve offered me the utmost protection a man can give a woman.  To tell you how deeply I’m touched, how sincerely I’m grateful, is beyond my power; but you must see that I can’t avail myself of your kindness.  Your very willingness to repeat at leisure what you said in haste makes it the more necessary that I shouldn’t take advantage of your chivalry.”

“Would that be your only reason for hesitating to become my wife?”

The deep, vibrant note that came into his voice sent a tremor through her frame, and she looked about her for support.  He himself offered it by taking both her hands in his.  She allowed him to hold them for a second before withdrawing behind the intrenched position afforded by the huge chair from which she had risen, and on the back of which she now leaned.

“It’s the reason that looms largest,” she replied—­“so large as to put all other reasons out of consideration.”

“Then you’re entirely mistaken,” he declared, coming forward in such a way that only the chair stood between them.  “It’s true that at Mrs. Bayford’s provocation I spoke in haste, but it was only to utter the resolution I had taken plenty of time to form.  If I were to tell you how much time, you’d be inclined to scorn me for my delay.  But the truth is I’m no longer a very young man; in comparison with you I’m not young at all.  You yourself, as a woman of the world, must readily understand that