“Nonsense!” She interrupts him with a saucy little shrug of her shoulders.  “And as for hours—­it wasn’t hours, any way.”

“You went out with him at eight o’clock——­”

“Who told you that?”

“Your maid.”

“You asked Sarah?”

“Certainly I did.  I had to do something before I asked my guests to sit down to breakfast without their hostess!”

“Well, I don’t care who you asked,” says Tita mutinously.

“You went out at eight, and you came home late for breakfast at half-past ten.”

“I explained all that to you,” says Tita, flinging out her hands.  “Tom and I went for a race, and of course I didn’t think it would take so long, and——­”

“I don’t suppose,” coldly, “you thought at all.”

“Certainly I never thought I was going to get a scolding on my return!”

“A scolding!  I shouldn’t dream of scolding so advanced a person as you,” says Rylton—­who is scolding with all his might.

“I wonder what you think you are doing now?” says Tita.  She pauses and looks at him critically.  He returns her gaze.  His cold eyes so full of condemnation, his compressed lips that speak of anger hardly kept back, all make a picture that impresses itself upon her mind.  Not, alas! in any salutary way.  “Well,” says she at last, with much deliberation and open, childish vindictiveness, “if you only knew how ugly you are when you look like that, you would never do it again!” She nods her head. "There!" says she.

It is so unexpected, so utterly undignified, that it takes all the dignity out of Rylton on the spot.  It suddenly occurs to him that it is no good to be angry with her.  What is she?  A mere naughty child—­or——­

“You do not know who you are like!” continues she.

Rylton shakes his head; he is afraid to speak—­a sudden wild desire to laugh is oppressing him.

“You are the image of Uncle George,” says she, with such wicked spite that a smile parts his lips.

“Oh! you can laugh if you like,” says she, “but you are, for all that.  You’re worse than him,” her anger growing because of that smile.  “I never——­”

“Never what?”

“I never met such a cross cat in my life!” says Lady Rylton, turning her back on him.

“It’s well to be unique in one’s own line,” says he grimly.

A short laugh breaks from him.  How absurd she is!  A regular little spitfire; yet what a pretty one.  His heart is full of sadness, yet he cannot keep back that laugh.  He hardly knows how he has so much mirth left in him, but the laugh sounds through the room and drives Tita to frenzy.

“Oh, you can laugh!” cries she, turning upon him.  “You can laugh when—­when——­” She makes a frantic little gesture that flings open the loose gown she wears, and shows once again her charming neck; words seem to fail her.  “Oh!  I should like to shake you,” says she at last.