“I do not remember that I agreed to anything of the sort,” she declared.  “I think it was you who laid down the law about that.  As a matter of fact, I think that your silence about her is very unkind.  I suppose you have seen her?”

“Yes, I have seen her,” Tavernake admitted.

“She continues to be tragic,” Elizabeth asked, “whenever my name is mentioned?”

“I should not call it tragic,” Tavernake answered, reluctantly.  “One gathers, however, that something transpired between you before she left, of a serious nature.”

She looked at him earnestly.

“Really,” she said, “you are a strange, stolid young man.  I wonder,” she went on, smiling into his face, “are you in love with my sister?”

Tavernake made no immediate response, only something flashed for a moment in his eyes which puzzled her.

“Why do you look at me like that?” she demanded.  “You are not angry with me for asking?”

“No, I am not angry,” he replied.  “It isn’t that.  But you must know—­you must see!”

Then she indeed did see that he was laboring under a very great emotion.  She leaned towards him, laughing softly.

“Now you are really becoming interesting,” she murmured.  “Tell me—­tell me all about it.”

“I don’t know what love is!” Tavernake declared fiercely.  “I don’t know what it means to be in love!”

Again she laughed in his face.

“Are you so sure?” she whispered.

She saw the veins stand out upon his temples, watched the passion which kept him at first tongue-tied.

“Sure!” he muttered.  “Who can be sure when you look like that!”

He held out his arms.  With a swift little backward movement she flitted away and leaned against the table.

“What a brother-in-law you would make!” she laughed.  “So steady, so respectable, alas! so serious!  Dear Mr. Tavernake, I wish you joy.  As a matter of fact, you and Beatrice are very well suited for one another.”

The telephone bell rang.  She moved over and held the receiver to her ear.  Her face changed.  After the first few words to which she listened, it grew dark with anger.

“You mean to say that Professor Franklin has not been in since lunch-time?” she exclaimed.  “I left word particularly that I should require him to-night.  Is Major Post there, then?  No?  Mr. Crease—­no?  Nor Mr. Faulkes?  Not one of them!  Very well, ring me up directly the professor comes in, or any of them.”

She replaced the receiver with a gesture of annoyance.  Tavernake was astonished at the alteration in her expression.  The smile had gone, and with its passing away lines had come under her eyes and about her mouth.  Without a word to him she strode away into her bedroom.  Tavernake was just wondering whether he should retire, when she came back.

“Listen, Mr. Tavernake,” she said, “how far away are your rooms?”