“Go down—­to Maurice?  Go and beg his pardon.  Is that what you mean?  No, thank you!”

“But, my dear, he is your husband?”

“Is that all?” Tita tilts her chin airily.  “One would think I was his daughter, the way you speak, or his slave!  No.  I shan’t apologize to him, Margaret, is that is what you mean.  I’m hanged if I do!”

“Tita—­my dear!” Margaret looks shocked.  “I don’t think you ought to use such expressions.  You make me very unhappy when you do.”

“Do I?” Tita gives her a little sidelong glance, meant to be contrite, but too full of mischief to be anything but incorrigible.  “Then I’m hanged if I say it again,” says she.

“Tita, you will come to grief yet,” says Margaret, laughing in spite of herself.  “Now to return to our argument.  I tell you, you owe Maurice something for this escapade of yours, innocent as it is.  Fancy in what an awkward position you placed him with your guests!  A man doesn’t like to feel awkward; and he is, naturally, a little annoyed with you about it.  And——­”

“Nonsense!” says Tita; “the guests have nothing to do with it!  As if I didn’t know!  Maurice is just in a bad temper because I have been riding with Tom.  He hates poor old Tom.  If I had gone riding with Randal or any of the others, and hadn’t been in till luncheon, he would have said nothing—­he would have treated it as a joke, I dare say.”

“Well—­but, Tita, is there nothing in his objection to Mr. Hescott?  You must admit, dearest, that your cousin is a little—­well, attentive to you.”

“Why, of course he is attentive to me.  He is quite like a brother to me.”

“Brothers, as a rule, are not so very attentive to their sisters.  The fact is, Tita,” says Margaret desperately, “that I think—­er—­that Maurice thinks—­that Mr. Hescott is——­”

“In love with me?  I know that,” says Tita, without the faintest embarrassment. "Isn’t it absurd?  Fancy Tom being in love with me!”

Margaret tells herself that she could fancy it very easily, but refrains from saying so.

“How do you know he isn’t?” asks she slowly.

“Why, if he was, I suppose he would tell me so,” says Tita, after which Miss Knollys feels that further argument would be useless.

Suddenly Tita turns to her.

“You think me entirely in the wrong,” says she, “and Maurice altogether in the right.  But there are things about Maurice I do not understand.  Is he true or is he false?  I never seem to know.  I don’t ask much of him—­not half as much as he asks of me—­and still——­”

“What do you mean, Tita?” asks Margaret, a nervous feeling contracting her throat.

Has she heard, then?—­does she know?

“I mean that he is unfair to me,” says Tita, standing back from Margaret, her eyes lighting.  “For one thing, why did he ask Mrs. Bethune to pour out tea this morning in my absence?  Was there,” petulantly, “no one else to ask?”