"Hang my mother!” says Rylton violently.  “I tell you my world is your world, and if not—­well, then I have no desire to belong to it.  The question is, Tita, will you consent to forget—­and—­and forgive—­and”—­with a sudden plunge—­“make it up with me?”

He would have taken her hand here, but she slips adroitly behind a small table.

“Say it is for respectability’s sake, if you like, that I ask you to return to me,” goes on Rylton, a little daunted, however, by her determined entrenchment; “though it is not.  Still——­”

She stops him.

“It is no use,” says she.  “Don’t go on.  I cannot.  I will not.  I,” her lips quiver slightly—­“I was too unhappy with you.  And I should always think of——­” Her voice dies away.

Rylton is thinking, too, of last night, and that terrible interview with Marian.  A feeling of hatred towards her grows within him.  She had played with him—­killed all that was best in him, and then flung him aside.  She had let him go for the moment—­only to return and spoil whatever good the world had left him.  Her face rises before him pleading, seductive; and here is the other face—­angry, scornful.  Oh, dear little angry face!  How fair, how pure, and how beloved!

“I tell you,” says he, breaking out vehemently, “that all that is at an end—­if I ever loved her.”  He forgets everything now, and, catching her hands, holds them tightly in his own.  “Give me another trial,” entreats he.

“No, no!” She speaks as if choking, but for all that she draws her hands out of his.  “It would be madness.  You would tire.  We should tire of each other in a week—­where there is no love.  No, no!”

“You refuse, then?”

“I refuse!”

“Tita——­”

She turns upon him passionately.

“I won’t listen.  It is useless.  You”—­a sob breaks from her—­“why don’t you go!” she cries a little wildly.

“This is not good-bye,” says he desperately.  “You will let me come again?  Margaret, I know, receives on Sundays. Say I may come then.”

“Yes.”

She gives the permission faintly, and with evident reluctance.  She lifts her eyes, and makes a gesture towards the door.

“Oh, I am going,” says Rylton bitterly.  He goes a step or two away from her, and then pauses as if loath to leave her.

“You might at least shake hands with me,” says he.

She hesitates—­then lays a cold little hand in his.  He too hesitates, then, stooping, presses his lips warmly, lingeringly to it.

In another moment he is gone.

Tita stands motionless, listening to his departing footsteps.  For a while she struggles with herself, as if determined to overcome the strange emotion that is threatening to master her.  Then she gives way, and, flinging herself into an armchair, breaks into a passion of tears.

Margaret, coming presently into the room, sees her, and going to her, kneels down beside the chair and takes her into her arms.