‘No, no, leave it alone!’

She had snatched it from his lips and thrown it into the grate.

‘What is the use of that?  I have a case full.’

‘They shall all follow the first.’

‘Well, then, I won’t smoke.’

‘I’ll see that you don’t.’

‘Well, what the better are you for that?’

‘Now, be nice.’

‘Go back to your chair and have some more tea.’

‘Oh, bother the tea!’

‘Well, I won’t speak to you unless you sit down and behave yourself.’

‘There now!  Speak away.’

’Look here, dear Violet, you must not talk about this any more.  Some things are possible and some are impossible.  This is absolutely, finally impossible.  We can never go back upon the past.  It is finished and done with.’

‘Then what did you come here for?’

‘To bid you good-bye.’

‘A Platonic good-bye.’

‘Of course.’

‘In a private room at Mariani’s.’

‘Why not?’

She laughed bitterly.

‘You were always a little mad, Frankie.’

He leaned earnestly over the table.

‘Look here, Violet, the chances are that we shall never meet again.’

‘It takes two to say that.’

’Well, I mean that after to-day I should not meet you again.  If you were not quite what you are it would be easier.  But as it is I find it a little too much of a test.  No, don’t mistake me or think that I am weakening.  That is impossible.  But all the same I don’t want to go through it again.’

‘So sorry if I have upset you.’

He disregarded her irony.

’We have been very good friends, Violet.  Why should we part as enemies?’

‘Why should we part at all?’

’We won’t go back over that.  Now do please look facts in the face and help me to do the right thing, for it would be so much easier if you would help me.  If you were a very good and kind girl you would shake my hand, like any other old pal, and wish me joy of my marriage.  You know that I should do so if I knew that you were going to be married.’

But the lady was not to be so easily appeased.  She took her tea in silence or answered his remarks with monosyllables, while the occasional flash of her dark eyes as she raised them was like the distant lightning which heralds the storm.  Suddenly, with a swift rustle of skirts, she was between the door and his chair.

‘Now, Frankie, we have had about enough of this nonsense,’ said she.  ’Don’t imagine that you are going to get out of this thing so easily.  I’ve got you, and I’ll keep you.’

He faced round in his chair and looked helplessly at her with a hand upon each knee.

‘O Lord!  Don’t begin it all over again,’ said he.

‘No, I won’t,’ she answered with an angry laugh.  ’I’ll try another line this time, Master Frank.  I’m not the sort of woman who lets a thing go easily when once I have set my heart upon it.  I won’t try coaxing any longer—­’