'You have no right to say that, unless you are quite, quite, quite sure,' she said rather haughtily.
She had no motive for that little speech, save a natural love for fair play, but he read in it a desire to champion his brother against his attack, and he was goaded to the point of indiscretion.
'I am so sure,' he answered bitterly, 'that sooner than touch hands in friendship with him again, I am giving up all my chances in life, and with them the hope of winning you. Don't say anything,' he went on, seeing that she was about to speak. 'I had no right to say that. I did not mean to annoy you with any hint of my vain devotion, but I couldn't help saying it. Consider it unsaid if you like, but don't be vexed with me. There is one thing I must ask you. I should be untrue to my love for you if I did not ask it. Do not let my brother win what his fault forbids me to try for.'
She rose.
'I have given you no right to talk in that way, nor to ask me any such promise, and I will promise nothing since I know nothing,' she said, indignantly.
'Then at least it shall not be my fault,' said Richard with equal fire, 'if you do not know what every woman he comes near ought to know. He is not free to offer love to any woman. He owes all the love he is capable of to a woman he has ruined and deserted.'
Miss Stanley looked at him coldly and contemptuously. He stood silent a moment, and in that moment felt the utter falseness of the step he had taken. She turned slightly away from him, and he knew that there were no more words to be said on either side.
'Good-bye,' he said; 'I shall not be at all likely to trouble you again.'
'Good afternoon,' she said, without moving; and he went out. Now, indeed, everything was over.
Clare, left to herself, sank down again in her low chair, and knitted her brows in annoyed meditation. Quarrels, separations, and crushing impertinent people with 'dynamic glances' were all very well in novels, but in real life it was much nicer to have things go smoothly. She could not quite foresee all the complications that this quarrel might lead to, but she knew that it would make a great difference at Firth Vale. Aspinshaw would be duller than ever. Would Roland come this evening? Could what Dick had said be true? If it was, she thought, he had no right to say it to her; and it was mean of him to say it to anyone behind his brother's back. Count Litvinoff would be sure to come, at anyrate. 'Let's hope he'll be entertaining,' she said to herself.