He turned his back on her and went on again, but at a slower pace. They went through a thick shrubbery and out on to a little sloping lawn at the edge of the lake, which was entirely surrounded by great rhododendrons. There was a boat-house here, and a garden seat, to which he motioned her.
She sat down, and looked up at him. "I am not going to talk to you standing over me like that," she said. "It will be giving you an unfair advantage."
He sat down on the same seat, as far away from her as possible.
"Well, what have you got to say for yourself?" she asked him, in much the same tone as a schoolmaster might have asked the question of an errant schoolboy.
He said nothing. He had nothing to say. His thoughts were still in a turmoil.
Perhaps silence was the best retort to her air of insolence. She had to find another opening.
"You call yourself a man of honour!" she said in a slow contemptuous voice. "You pay hush-money, so that the innocent may suffer, and the guilty go free."
"It's a lie," he said. "I paid no money. I refused to pay money."
"Ah, then you did know everything. It was what I could not be quite certain about. The story was confused. Thank you for clearing it up."
He felt himself trapped at the first opening of his mouth. He would need all his wits to cope with this shameless, cunning woman. He tried to break through her deliberate artifices. "What do you want?" he asked. "What have you come here for?"