“If we’re going to play a game,” he continued, addressing Davenant, before the latter had time to speak, “for Heaven’s sake let us play it straight—­like men.  Let the winner win and the loser lose—­”

“I’ve no objection to that, Colonel, when I do play—­but at present—­”

“Look here,” Ashley said, with a new inspiration; “I put it to you—­I put it to you as a man—­simply as a man—­without any highfalutin principles whatever.  Suppose I’d done what you’ve done—­and given my bottom dollar—­”

“But I haven’t.”

“Well, no matter!  Suppose I had done what you’ve done—­and you were in my place—­would you, as a man—­simply as a man, mind you—­be willing to go off with the lady whom I had freed from great anxiety—­to say the least—­and be happy forever after—­and so forth—­with nothing but a Thank-you-sir?  Come now!  Would you?”

It was evident that Davenant was shy of accepting this challenge.  He colored and looked uneasy—­all the more so because Olivia lifted her eyes to him appealingly, as though begging him to come to her support.  It was perhaps in the belief that he would do so that she said, earnestly, leaning forward a little: 

“Tell him, Mr. Davenant, tell him.”

“I don’t see what it’s got to do with me—­” Davenant began to protest.

“It’s got everything to do with you,” Ashley broke in.  “Since you’ve created the situation you can’t shirk its responsibilities.”

“Tell him, Mr. Davenant, tell him,” Olivia repeated.  “Would you, or would you not?”

He looked helplessly from one to the other.  “Well, then—­I wouldn’t,” he said, simply.

“There you are!” Ashley cried, triumphantly, moving away from the wall and turning toward Olivia.

She was plainly disappointed.  Davenant could so easily have said, “I would.”  Nevertheless, she answered quietly, picking up the paper-knife that lay on the table and turning it this way and that as though studying the tints of the mother-of-pearl in the dying light: 

“It doesn’t matter to me, Rupert, what other people would do or would not do.  If you persist in this attempt—­this mad attempt—­I shall not marry you.”

He strode to the table, looking down at her averted face and bent head.

“Then we’re at a deadlock.”

She gave him a quick glance.  “No; it isn’t a deadlock, because—­because there’s still a way out.”

He leaned above her, supporting himself with his hand on the table.  “And it’s a way I shall never take so long as you can’t say—­what you admitted a little while ago that you couldn’t say—­”

“I can’t say it,” she murmured, her face still further averted; “but all the same it’s cruel of you to make it a condition.”

He bent lower till his lips almost touched her hair.  “It’s cruel of you,” he whispered, “to put me in the position where I must.”

The room and the hall behind it were now so dim that Davenant had no difficulty in slipping between the portieres and getting away.