'I presume nothing. I came, unhappily, only as I believed at your expressed desire.'
'How? I desire you?' She added: 'You would say now you were loath to come.'
'I was,' he admitted, ashamed for his lack of gratitude.
'Go—go!' she said, with a show of proud indifference, 'and see if the gull that guided you here without my consent will guide you hence without my consent.'
Insult and threat he recognised, and answered to the former first.
'Whatever you lay to my charge, I may hardly say a word in defence without earning further disgrace for bare truth.'
'You did not of yourself return here? For far from you was any desire ever to set eyes on me again?'
So well did she mask her mortal resentment, that the faint vibration in her voice conveyed to him suspicion of laughter.
'On you—I think I had none—but for one thing,' he said, with honest exactitude.
'And that?'