his palette and brushes with ostentatious care, and faced her doggedly.
"I don't understand what you mean," he declared.

"Oh, I think you do; and in the hope that I may induce you, in justice
to me, to change your conduct, I have come over."

"I don't think you should have come," he observed in a low voice, and
threw himself on the couch with averted eyes.

Lady Agnes colored again. "You are talking nonsense," she said with some
sharpness. "There is no harm in my coming to see my cousin."

"We were more than cousins once."

"Exactly, and unfortunately people know that. But you needn't make
matters worse by so pointedly keeping away from me."

Lambert looked up quickly. "Do you wish me to see you often?" he asked,
and there was a new note in his voice which irritated her.

"Personally I don't, but--"

"But what?" He rose and stood up, very tall and very straight, looking
down on her with a hungry look in his blue eyes.

"People are talking," murmured the lady, and stared at the floor,
because she could not face that same look.

"Let them talk. What does it matter?"