“No, I want to know, little darling—­what did it mean?” and Michael looked into her eyes with fond command.

“It made my heart beat and my knees tremble and a strange thrill came over me—­I ought to have known then that to feel like that did not mean indifference—­oughtn’t I?”

“I expect so—­but what a moment it was when we did meet, you must come to that!”

“Arrogant, darling creature you are, Michael!  You love to make me recount all these things,” and Sabine looked so sweetly mutinous that he could not remain tranquilly listening for the moment, but had to make passionate love to her—­whispering every sort of endearment into her little ear—­though presently she continued the recital of her story again: 

“I stood there in the lodge after the shock of seeing you had passed, and I began to burn with every sort of resentment against you—­I had had all the suffering and you had gone free—­and I just felt I wanted to punish you by pretending not to know you!  Think of it!  How small—­and yet there underneath I felt your old horribly powerful charm!”

“Oh, you did, did you!  You darling,” Michael exclaimed—­and what do you suppose I felt—­if we had only rushed there and then into each other’s arms!”

“I was quite prepared for you in the garden—­and did not I play my part well!  You got quite white, you know with surprise—­and I felt exquisitely excited.  I could see you had come in all innocence—­having probably forgotten our joking arrangement that I should call myself Mrs. Howard—­I could not think why you did not speak out and denounce me.  It hurt my pride, I thought it was because you wanted to divorce me and marry Daisy that you were indifferent about it.  I did not know it was because you had given your word of honor to Henry not to interfere with the woman he loved.  Then after dinner Henry told me you knew that he and I were practically engaged—­that stung me deeply—­it seemed to prove your indifference—­so things developed and we met in the garden—­Michael, was not that a wonderful hour!  How we both acted.  If you had indicated by word or look that you remembered me, I could not have kept it up, we should have had to tell Henry then—­we were playing at cross-purposes and my pride was wounded.”

“I understand, sweetheart, go on.”

“Well, I was miserable at luncheon, and then when you went out in the boat—­being with you was like some intoxicating drink—­I was more excited than I had ever been in my life.  I was horrid toward Henry, I would not own it to myself, but I felt him to be the stumbling block in the way.  So I was extra nice to him to convince myself—­and I let him hold my arm, which I had never done before and you saw that in the garden.  I suppose—­and thought I loved him and so went—­that was nice of you, Michael—­but stupid, wasn’t it!”

“Ridiculously stupid, everything I did was stupid that separated you from me.  The natural action of my character would have been just to seize you again and carry you off resisting or unresisting to Arranstoun, but some idiotic sentiment of honor to Henry held me.”