heard it now in the sharp wooden clack which alternated
with the muffled thud of the foot fall. Another
instant and my servant had shown her in.

I did not attempt the usual conventions of society, nor
did she. I simply stood with the smouldering cigarette
in my hand, and gazed at her. She in her turn looked
silently at me, and at her look I remembered how in
these very pages I had tried to define the expression
of her eyes, whether they were furtive or fierce. To-
day they were fierce--coldly and inexorably so.

"Well," said she at last, "are you still of the same
mind as when I saw you last?"

"I have always been of the same mind."

"Let us understand each other, Professor Gilroy," said
she slowly. "I am not a very safe person to trifle
with, as you should realize by now. It was you who
asked me to enter into a series of experiments with
you, it was you who won my affections, it was you who
professed your love for me, it was you who brought me
your own photograph with words of affection upon it,
and, finally, it was you who on the very same evening
thought fit to insult me most outrageously, addressing
me as no man has ever dared to speak to me yet. Tell
me that those words came from you in a moment of
passion and I am prepared to forget and to forgive
them. You did not mean what you said, Austin? You do