"The fact that I say it," said Mr. Alington. "Also, there is corroborative evidence if I choose to adduce it. I showed you the other night, meaning merely to give you a hint, that, had I wanted, I could have cheated very neatly. Is it credible, then, even supposing that I am one of those people who cheat, that I should have done it so clumsily?"
Kit in her heart believed the man, but her superficial woman's cunning refused to give up the hold she still hoped she might have over him, her only answer to the hold she was afraid he had over her.
"We all make blunders at times," she said, in her most fiendish manner. "Unfortunately, I don't believe what you say."
Mr. Alington sipped his coffee again. His momentary irritation had quite died down; you could not have found a kinder Christian in all England.
"Fortunately, however, that matters very little," he replied.
"It does not make a man popular among us," observed Kit, "if he is known to cheat at baccarat. I understood you the other night to say that sort of thing was common in Australia. I should advise you to remember that we think differently here."
Kit had lost her temper completely, and did not stop to weigh her words. Worse than that, she lost her head, and lashed out insults with foolish defiance.
Mr. Alington crossed one leg over the other, his mouth grew a shade more compressed and precise, and his large pale eyes turned suddenly unluminous and stale like a snake's. Kit grew frightened again, and when a woman is frightened as well as angry she is not likely to score off a perfectly cool man. There was a moment's pause.
"Lady Conybeare," said he at length, "you have chosen to treat me as a knave and as a fool. And I dislike very much being treated as a knave or a fool by you. You accuse me of cheating: that I have reason to believe does not seem to you very shocking."
"May I ask why?" interrupted Kit.