“Give me the opportunity,” she answered, with an acid smile.  “Tell what you have to tell.”

“But this is not like yourself,” he remonstrated.  “It’s a new spirit.  I have never known you like this.”

Constance moved her foot, and spoke sharply.

“Say what you have to say, and never mind anything else.”

Lashmar bent his brows.

“After all, Constance, I am a perfectly free man.  If you are annoyed because I wish to put an end to what you yourself recognise as a mere pretence, it’s very unreasonable, and quite unworthy of you.”

“You are right,” answered the other, with sudden change to ostentatious indifference.  “It’s time the farce stopped.  I, for one, have had enough of it.  If you like, I will tell Lady Ogram myself, this morning.”

“No!” exclaimed Dyce, with decision.  “That I certainly do not wish.  Are you resolved, all at once, to do me as much harm as you can?”

“Not at all, I thought I should relieve you of a disagreeable business.”

“If you really mean that, I am very grateful.  I wanted to tell you everything, and talk it over, and see what you thought best to be done.  But of course I shouldn’t dream of forcing my confidence upon you.  It’s a delicate matter and only because we were such intimate friends.”—­

“If you will have done with all this preamble,” Constance interrupted, with forced calm, “and tell me what there is to be told, I am quite willing to listen.”

“Well, I will do so.  It’s this.  I am in love with May Tomalin, and I want to marry her.”

Their eyes met, Dyce was smiling, an uneasy, abashed smile.  Constance wore an expression of cold curiosity, and spoke in a corresponding voice.

“Have you asked her to do so?”

“Not yet,” Lashmar replied.

For a moment, Constance gazed at him; then she said, quietly: 

“I don’t believe you.”

“That’s rather emphatic,” cried Dyce, affecting a laugh.  “It conveys my meaning.  I don’t believe you, for several reasons.  One of them is—­” She broke off, and rose from her chair.  “Please wait; I will be back in a moment.”

Lashmar sat looking about the room.  He began to be aware that he had not breakfasted,—­a physical uneasiness added to the various forms of disquiet from which his mind was suffering.  When Constance re-entered, he saw she had a book in her hand, a book which by its outward appearance he at once recognised.

“Do you know this?” she asked, holding the volume to him.  “I received it yesterday, and have already gone through most of it.  I find it very interesting.”

“Ah, I know it quite well,” Dyce answered, fingering the pages.  “A most suggestive book.  But—­what has it to do with our present conversation?”

Constance viewed him wonderingly.  If he felt at all disconcerted, nothing of the kind appeared in his face, which wore, indeed, a look of genuine puzzlement.