“Do you pretend that was the first time?”

“The first—­the first?" cries Tita passionately.  “Do you think—­do you dare to think that——­”

“I refuse to tell you what I think.  There is one thing more, however, to be said; you shall give up all further intercourse with your cousin.”

Now, Tita had decided, during her late interview with Tom, that she would never willingly see him again; but here and thus to be ordered to do her own desire is more than she can bear.

“No, I shall not do that,” says she.

“You shall," says Rylton, whose temper is now beyond his control.

“I shall not." Tita is standing back from him, her small flower-like head uplifted, her eyes on fire.  “Oh, coward!” cries she.  “You do right to speak to me like this—­to me, who have no one to help me.”

“You—­you!” interrupts he.  “Where is Hescott, then?”

His voice, his tone, his whole air, is one great insult.

Tita stands for one moment like a marble thing transfixed; then: 

“Tom is not here," says she slowly, contemptuously, and with great meaning.  “If he were——­ In the meantime, I am in your power, so far that I must listen to you.  There is no one to help me.  I haven’t a living soul in the wide world to stand by me, and you know it.”

Here the door is thrown open, and Margaret comes in, pale, uneasy.  By a mere chance she had left her room to place a letter for the early post in the box in the corridor outside, and had then seen Hescott going down the corridor (unconscious of Rylton coming up behind him)—­had seen the latter’s rather rough impelling of Tita into her bedroom, and——­ And afraid of consequences, she had at last smothered her dreadful repugnance to interfering with other people’s business, and had gone swiftly to Tita’s door.  Even then she was on the point of giving up—­of being false to her principles—­when Tita’s voice, a little high, a little strained, had frightened her.  It had been followed by an angry answer from Rylton.  Margaret opened the door and went in.

Tita is standing with her back to a small table, her hands behind her, resting upon it, steadying her.  She is facing Rylton, and every one of her small beautiful features breathes defiance—­a defiance which seems to madden Rylton.  His face is terribly white, and he has caught his under lip with his teeth—­a bad sign with him.

“Maurice, it is not her fault.  Tita, forgive me!  I heard—­I saw—­I feared something.”  The gentle Margaret seems all broken up, and very agitated.  After a pause, as if to draw her breath—­a pause not interrupted, so great is the amazement of the two belligerents before her et her so sudden appearance—­she addresses herself solely to Sir Maurice.  “She had been with me,” she begins.  “It was the merest chance her leaving me just then; she was going to her own room.”

But Tita cuts he short.