There was a moment's silence.
'You changed your mind when you saw me come into Dorothy Emsworth's room,' he said. 'Now, I always meant to tell you about that. It is perfectly true that for nearly two years——'
She held up her hand.
'You need not trouble,' she said. 'I know.'
Bilton paused a half-second to arrange his reply in the way he wished.
'I always supposed she would tell you,' he said.
Her silence admitted it, and he had scored a side-point. He wished to know whether Dorothy had told her.
'I think you are hard on me,' he said; 'or perhaps I do not understand. You were, before you knew that, prepared to accept my devotion. Do you reject it now because I have led that sort of life?'
Sybil frowned.
'I can't discuss the question with you,' she said. 'I will just suggest to you this, that you went to see your mistress while I, to whom you had expressed devotion, was staying in the house. If you can't understand my feeling about that, I can't explain it to you.'