With immense effort she controlled herself.  “Very well.  What do you wish me to understand?”

“Simply this,” said Hunt-Goring.  “I know very well that your engagement to Wyndham was simply a move in the game, and that you have not the faintest intention of marrying him.  That is so, I think?”

She was silent, taken by surprise.

“I thought so,” he continued.  “You see, I am not so easy to hoodwink.  And now I am going to act up to my villain’s role and break that engagement of yours—­which is no engagement.  To put it quite shortly and comprehensibly—­I am going to marry you myself.”

She stared at him in gasping astonishment.  “You!” she said.  “You!”

He laughed into her eyes of horror.  “You will soon get used to the idea,” he said.  “You see, Wyndham doesn’t really want you, and I do.  That is the one extenuating circumstance of my villainy.  I want you so badly that I don’t much care what steps I take to get you.  And so long as you continue to hate me as heartily as you do now, just by so much shall I continue to want you.  Is that quite plain?”

She was still staring at him in open repulsion.  “And you think I would marry you?” she said breathlessly.  “You think I would marry you?”

“I think you will have to,” said Hunt-Goring, with his silky laugh.  “I love you, you see.”  He added, after a moment, “I shan’t be unkind to you if you behave reasonably.  I am well off.  I can give you practically anything you want.  Of course you will have to give also; but that goes without saying.  The point is, how soon can we be married?”

“Never!” she cried vehemently.  “Never!  Never!”

He looked at her, and again her eyes fell; but she continued, nevertheless, with less of violence but more of force.

“I don’t know what you mean by suggesting such a thing.  I think you must be quite mad—­as I should be if I took you seriously.  I am not going to marry you, Major Hunt-Goring.  I have never liked you, and I never shall.  You force me to speak plainly, and so I am telling you the simple truth.”

“Thank you,” said Hunt-Goring.  “Well, now, let us see if I can persuade you to change your mind.”

“You will never do that,” she said quickly.

He smiled.  “I wonder!  Anyhow, let me try!  It makes no difference to you that I love you?”

“No,” she told him flatly.  “None whatever.  In fact, I don’t believe it.”

“I will prove it to you one day,” he said.  “But let that pass now, since it has no weight with you.  I quite realize that I shall not persuade you to marry me for your own sake or for mine.  But—­I think you may be induced to consider the matter for the sake of—­your friend.”

“In what way?” Breathlessly she asked the Question. for again it was as if a warning voice spoke within her, bidding her to go warily.

He paused a moment.  Then:  “Has it never struck you that there is something rather—­peculiar—­about her?” he asked suavely.