“You are childish,” I said severely.  “See if you can get through the window behind you.  If you can not, I’ll come down and unfasten it.”  But the window was open, and I had a chance to sit down and gather up the scattered ends of my nerves.  To my surprise, however, when he came back he made no effort to renew our conversation.  He ignored me completely, and went to work at once to repair the damage to his wires, with his back to me.

“I think you are very rude,” I said at last.  “You fell over there and I thought you were killed.  The nervous shock I experienced is just as bad as if you had gone—­all the way.”

He put down the hammer and came over to me without speaking.  Then, when he was quite close, he said: 

“I am very sorry if I startled you.  I did not flatter myself that you would be profoundly affected, in any event.”

“Oh, as to that,” I said lightly, “it makes me ill for days if my car runs over a dog.”  He looked at me in silence.  “You are not going to get up on that parapet again?”

“Mrs. Wilson,” he said, without paying the slightest attention to my question, “will you tell me what I have done?”

“Done?”

“Or have not done?  I have racked my brains—­stayed awake all of last night.  At first I hoped it was impersonal, that, womanlike you were merely venting general disfavor on one particular individual.  But—­your hostility is to me, personally.”

I raised my eyebrows, coldly interrogative.

“Perhaps,” he went on calmly—­“perhaps I was a fool here on the roof—­the night before last.  If I said anything that I should not, I ask your pardon.  If it is not that, I think you ought to ask mine!”

I was angry enough then.

“There can be only one opinion about your conduct,” I retorted warmly.  “It was worse than brutal.  It—­it was unspeakable.  I have no words for it—­except that I loathe it—­and you.”

He was very grim by this time.  “I have heard you say something like that before—­only I was not the unfortunate in that case.”

“Oh!” I was choking.

“Under different circumstances I should be the last person to recall anything so—­personal.  But the circumstances are unusual.”  He took an angry step toward me.  “Will you tell me what I have done?  Or shall I go down and ask the others?”

“You wouldn’t dare,” I cried, “or I will tell them what you did!  How you waylaid me on those stairs there, and forced your caresses, your kisses, on me!  Oh, I could die with shame!”

The silence that followed was as unexpected as it was ominous.  I knew he was staring at me, and I was furious to find myself so emotional, so much more the excited of the two.  Finally, I looked up.

“You can not deny it,” I said, a sort of anti-climax.

“No.”  He was very quiet, very grim, quite composed.  “No,” he repeated judicially.  “I do not deny it.”

He did not?  Or he would not?  Which?