‘Circumstances alter oaths,’ said I, bending till I was very near Phroso’s ear.
‘Ah,’ said Phroso reproachfully, ‘that’s what lovers say when they find another more beautiful than their old love.’
I shot away from Phroso’s ear with a sudden backward start. Her remark somehow came home to me with a very remarkable force. I got off the table, and stood opposite to her in an awkward and stiff attitude.
‘I am compelled to ask you, for the last time, if you will tell me the secret?’ said I, in the coldest of tones.
She looked up with surprise; my altered manner may well have amazed her. She did not know the reason of it.
‘You asked me kindly and—and pleasantly, and I would not. Now you ask me as if you threatened,’ she said. ‘Is it likely I should tell you now?’
Well, I was angry with myself and with her because she had made me angry with myself; and, the next minute, I became furiously angry with Denny, whom I found standing in the doorway that led to the kitchen with a smile of intense amusement on his face.
‘What are you grinning at?’ I demanded fiercely.
‘Oh, nothing,’ said Denny, and his face strove to assume a prudent gravity.