He did not salute the figure, he did not even take his hands out of his pockets. He put his face close to hers, and each could see that the other's features were white and anxious.
"So you've come," said he, glumly.
"What do you want?" Helen coldly asked.
"I want to speak to you. That's what I want. If you care for Emanuel Prockter, why did you play that trick on him this afternoon?"
"What trick?"
"You know perfectly well what I mean. So I'll thank you not to beat about the bush. The plain fact is that you don't care a pin for Prockter."
"I never said I did."
"You've made every one believe you did, anyhow. You've even made me think so, though all the time I knew it was impossible. An ass like that!"
"What do you want?" Helen repeated.
They were both using a tone intended to indicate that they were enemies from everlasting to everlasting, and that mere words could not express the intensity of their mutual hatred and scorn. The casual distant observer might have conceived the encounter to be a love idyll.