Rea.s.sured by the formality of the action, she took the proffered seat.

"Now take off your gloves. We shall feel more at home."

Again she gave a little laugh.

"My gloves! But I must go in five minutes."

"In five minutes? When the night is so young?" He drew forward another chair, and sat down beside her.

"Do you know how glad and proud I feel?"

She looked up quickly. His tone had subtly changed.

"Lord Deerehurst," she said, "I must explain that the reason I came--the reason I came, instead of sending for you or writing----"

Deerehurst leant forward and laid his cold hands over hers.

"Let me take these off! It feels so very formal and unlike ourselves."

He began softly to open the b.u.t.tons of her glove and draw it deftly from her hand.

"But you haven't listened to what I said," she objected. "I want to explain at once, so that you can understand at once----"

Before answering, he drew off the second glove and laid the two upon the table.

"Why should you explain? Have I ever been lacking in imagination?"

"No--oh no; I did not mean that!"

"Then why explain anything? Don't you think we have fenced with each other long enough?" He picked up the gloves quickly, and again laid them down. "Don't you think I can understand without explanation?"

"Understand?"

"Why you came to me to-night."

"Understand--why I came to-night?"

"I think so."

He turned and looked straight into her eyes.

At the look and the movement the blood leaped to her face; she drew back into her chair.

"And why do you think I came to-night?"

Very swiftly Deerehurst bent forward.

"I think, little lady, that you came because you know that a man cannot be played with for ever. And because, being a very proud woman, you will not say in so many words, 'I give you leave to love me!' Dear little Clodagh!" He suddenly put out his hand towards hers. "It has all been very delightful--your reticence and your innocence. But we both know that such pretty things are perishable."

Clodagh sat perfectly still. She did not attempt to withdraw her hand; she did not attempt to rise. She sat watching him as if fascinated, while a hundred recollections of looks, of words, of insinuations directed against her and him by Lady Frances Hope--by Rose Bathurst--by other women of their set--strayed in nightmare fashion across her mind.

Deerehurst sat watching her, his hand holding hers, his eyes steadily reading her face. Then suddenly he gave a short laugh and leant back in his chair.

"Little actress!" he said.

The words, but more than the words the tone in which they were spoken, roused her. She rose incontinently to her feet, a sudden memory of Serracauld and the card-room at Tuffnell sweeping across her mind.

"Lord Deerehurst," she said breathlessly, "there is some terrible mistake. You utterly, utterly misunderstand."

It was Deerehurst's turn to show emotion. For the first time in her knowledge of him, the mask of impa.s.sivity dropped from his face; his cold eyes gleamed unpleasantly.

"And how, little lady? I am not often accused of misreading men--and women."

"You think----" She paused, unable to find the words she needed. She felt like one who has inadvertently stepped upon shifting sands, where the ground had seemed most secure.

"You think----" she began again.

But she got no further. With a silent movement, Deerehurst laid his hand upon her arm.

"Don't you think we have fenced long enough? Don't you think I have been extraordinarily patient?"

Clodagh turned very cold.

"Patient?" she said indistinctly.

He drew her suddenly closer to him; and before she could resist, he had kissed her hair, her lips, her neck.

"Yes, patient, because I have never before asked for this. Because I have been content to kiss your hand, when I might long ago----" He bent over her again. But something in the white face and wild eyes that confronted him arrested him. He drew back and looked at her.

"Come!" he said. "The play is over! Give me a kiss of your own accord."

Clodagh said nothing. Terror mastered her.

"Come! Give me a kiss!"

She lay almost pa.s.sive in his embrace, her lips parted, her eyes fixed on his.

He gave another short laugh, half indulgent, half triumphant.

"What a little saint! Come! Show me why you came to me to-night! Be human! Be what you know you are!"

Clodagh made no answer; but he felt her sway a little in his arms.

"What is it?" he asked sharply. Selfish annoyance was written on his face, though he asked the question solicitously.

"I feel faint," she said--"a little faint."

"Faint? Nonsense! It will pa.s.s. Rest for a moment." Without ceremony, he half lifted her across the room to a couch that stood between the fireplace and the door.