“A woman ’who does such things as this should have the courage to go through with it.  She ought to have come herself, and have told me that.  She was aiming at much better things than I could have promised her.  There would have been something to admire in that.  The worst of it is she is making me feel ashamed of her.  I’d rather have to do with a woman who didn’t care a rap for my feelings than with a weak one, who tried to spare me to advantage herself at the same time.  There’s nothing like courage, whether in good or evil.  What do you think?  Does she like Narramore?”

“I think she does,” faltered Patty, nervously striking her dress.

“Is she in love with him?”

“I—­I really don’t know!”

“Do you think she ever was in love with anyone, or ever will be?”

Patty sat mute.

“Just tell me what you think.”

“I’m afraid she never—­Oh, I don’t like to say it, Mr. Hilliard!”

“That she never was in love with me?  I know it.”

His tone caused Patty to look up at him, and what she saw in his face made her say quickly: 

“I am so sorry; I am indeed!  You deserve——­”

“Never mind what I deserve,” Hilliard interrupted with a grim smile.  “Something less than hanging, I hope.  That fellow in London; she was fond of him?”

The girl whispered an assent.

“A pity I interfered.”

“Ah!  But think what——­”

“We won’t discuss it, Patty.  It’s a horrible thing to be mad about a girl who cares no more for you than for an old glove; but it’s a fool’s part to try to win her by the way of gratitude.  When we came back from Paris I ought to have gone my way, and left her to go hers.  Perhaps just possible—­if I had seemed to think no more of her——­”

Patty waited, but he did not finish his speech.

“What are you going to do, Mr. Hilliard?”

“Yes, that’s the question.  Shall I hold her to her promise?  She says here that she will keep her word if I demand it.”

“She says that!” Patty exclaimed, with startled eyes.

“Didn’t you know?”

“She told me it was impossible.  But perhaps she didn’t mean it.  Who can tell what she means?”

For the first time there sounded a petulance in the girl’s voice.  Her lips closed tightly, and she tapped with her foot on the floor.

“Did she say that the other thing was also impossible—­to marry Narramore?”

“She thinks it is, after what you’ve told him.”

“Well, now, as a matter of fact I told him nothing.”

Patty stared, a new light in her eyes.

“You told him—­nothing?”

“I just let him suppose that I had never heard the girl’s name before.”

“Oh, how kind of you!  How——­”

“Please to remember that it wasn’t very easy to tell the truth.  What sort of figure should I have made?”