Ackroyd checked some impulsive words, and recommenced gravely: 

’Look here, Totty.  Will you please tell me in plain words what you supposed I was asking you about on Tuesday night?’

’All right.  It’s nothing to me.  You’d found out somehow that Thyrza was foolish enough to want to have you instead of Mr. Grail, and so you was so kind as to come and tell me.  I quite understood; there’s no need of saying ‘I beg your pardon.’  You may go your way, and I go mine.’

’And you mean to say you believed that!  Well, I don’t wonder at you being in the sulks.  And that’s why you send Lydia to me to ask about Thyrza?  By the Lord, if I ever heard the like of that!  Well, I’ve got a fair lot of cheek, but I couldn’t quite manage that.’

‘Then what did you mean?’ she cried angrily.

’Why, nothing at all.  But what did you mean by saying you knew all about it?’

‘About as much as you did,’ she answered coldly.

‘H’m.  Then we both meant nothing.  I’ll say good. night, Totty.’

‘No you won’t.  You’ll please to tell me what you did mean!’

He was about to answer lightly, but altered his intention and said: 

‘I can’t do that.  It’s not my business.’

‘As you please.  I shall go and ask Mrs. Bower what’s going on.’

’I can’t prevent you.  But listen here, Totty.  If you repeat what they tell you—­if you repeat it once—­you’re not the girl I thought you.  It’s more than half a cursed lie, and you can’t tell one half the story without meaning the other.’

’I shall know what to think when I’ve heard it, Mr. Ackroyd.  And as to repeating, I shall do as I think fit.’

’Look here!  When you’ve heard that story, you’ll just go and say to everybody that ever mentions it to you that it’s a lie from beginning to end.  You understand me?’

‘I shall do as I please.’

‘No, you’ll do as I please!’

‘Indeed!  And who made you my master, Mr. Ackroyd?’

’I’ve nothing more to say, but you’ve heard me.  And you’ll do it, because your own heart ’ll tell you it’s the right thing to do.  I don’t often use words like that, but I mean it to-night.  Good-bye!’

She allowed him to walk away.

CHAPTER XXV

A BIRD OF THE AIR

When Paula had been three or four days wedded, it occurred to her to examine her husband’s countenance.  They were at breakfast at Biarritz, and certain words that fell from Mr. Dalmaine, as he sat sideways from the table with his newspaper, led her eyes to rest for a few moments on his face.  He was smiling, but with depressed brows.  Paula noted the smile well, and it occupied her thoughts now and then during the day.  She was rather in want of something to think of just then, feeling a little lonely, and wishing her mother, or her brother, or somebody whom she really knew, were at hand to talk to.