that!"

I described his successful appeal to my compassion--not very willingly,
for it made me look (as I thought) like a weak person. Little by little,
she extracted from me the rest: how he objected to find a young man,
especially in my social position, talking to Cristel; how he insisted on
my respecting his claims, and engaging not to see her again; how, when I
refused to do this, he gave me his confession to read, so that I might
find out what a formidable man I was setting at defiance; how I had not
been in the least alarmed, and had treated him (as Cristel had just
heard) on the footing of a perfect stranger.

"There's the whole story," I concluded. "Like a scene in a play, isn't
it?"

She protested once more against the light tone that I persisted in
assuming.

"I tell you again, sir, this is no laughing matter. You have roused his
jealousy. You had better have roused the fury of a wild beast. Knowing
what you know of him, why did you stay here, when he came in? And, oh,
why did I humiliate him in your presence? Leave us, Mr. Gerard--pray,
pray leave us, and don't come near this place again till father has got
rid of him."

Did she think I was to be so easily frightened as that? My sense of my
own importance was up in arms at the bare suspicion of it!

"My dear child," I said grandly, "do you really suppose I am afraid of
that poor wretch? Am I to give up the pleasure of seeing you, because a