“I should be dishonest if I pretended to agree.”

“But—­don’t you think you owe it to me to give what I suggest a fair trial?”

The words were trenchant, the tone was studiously soft.  Irene strung herself for contest, hoping it would come quickly and undisguised.

“I owe you much.  I have done you a great injustice.  But waiting will do no good.  I know my mind at last.  I see what is possible and what impossible.”

“Do you imagine, Irene, that I can part with you on these terms?  Do you really think I could shake hands, and say good-bye, at this stage of our relations?”

“What can I do?” Her voice, kept low, shook with emotion.  “I confess an error—­am I to pay for it with my life?”

“I ask you only to be just to yourself as well as to me.  Let three days go by, and see me again.”

She seemed to reflect upon it.  In truth she was debating whether to persevere in honesty, or to spare her nerves with dissimulation.  A promise to wait three days would set her free forthwith; the temptation was great.  But something in her had more constraining power.

“If I pretended to agree, I should be ashamed of myself.  I should have passed from error into baseness.  You would have a right to despise me; as it is, you have only a right to be angry.”

As though the word acted upon his mood, Arnold sprang forward from the chair, fell upon one knee close beside her, and grasped her hands.  Irene instinctively threw herself back, looking frightened; but she did not attempt to rise.  His face was hot-coloured, his eyes shone unpleasantly; but before he spoke, his lips parted in a laugh.

“Are you one of the women,” he said, “who have to be conquered?  I didn’t think so.  You seemed so reasonable.”

“Do you dream of conquering a woman who cannot love you?”

“I refuse to believe it.  I recall your own words.”

He made a movement to pass one arm about her waist.

“No!  After what I have said——!”

Her hands being free, she sprang up and broke away from him.  Arnold rose more slowly, his look lowered with indignation.  Eyes bent on the ground, hands behind him, he stood mute.

“Must I leave you?” said Irene, when she could steady her voice.

“That is my dismissal?”

“If you cannot listen to me, and believe me—­yes.”

“All things considered, you are a little severe.”

“You put yourself in the wrong.  However unjust I have been to you, I can’t atone by permitting what you call conquest.  No, I assure you, I am not one of those women.”

His eyes were now fixed upon her; his lips announced a new determination, set as they were in the lines of resentful dignity.

“Let me put the state of things before you,” he said in his softest tones, just touched with irony.  “The fact of our engagement has been published.  Our marriage is looked for by a host of friends and acquaintances, and even by the mere readers of the newspapers.  All but at the last moment, on a caprice, an impulse you do not pretend to justify to one’s intelligence, you declare it is all at an end.  Pray, how do you propose to satisfy natural curiosity about such a strange event?”