"But you said—you spoke of my conduct!"
"Well, and is there nothing to be said of that? This cousin——" He stops, and then goes on abruptly: "Why does he call you Titania?"
"Oh, it is an old name for me!" She looks at him, and, leaning back again in her chair, bursts out laughing. She has flung her arms over her head again, and now looks at him from under one of them with a mischievous smile. "Is that the whole?" says she. "He used to call me that years ago. He used to say I was like a fairy queen."
"Used he?"
Rylton's face is untranslatable.
"Yes. I was the smallest child alive, I do believe." She springs to her feet, and goes up to Rylton in a swaying, graceful little fashion. "I'm not so very big even now, am I?" says she.
Rylton turns his eyes from hers with open determination; he steels his heart against her.
"About this cousin," he says icily. "He is the one who used to say you had hands like iron, and a heart like velvet?"
"Yes. Fancy you remembering that!" says Tita, a sudden, quick gleam of pleasure dyeing her pretty cheeks quite red.
"I always remember," returns Rylton distantly.