"Andrew," she said, "I cannot tell you anything. It must sound rather horrid of me, but I cannot help it. I want you to go away. In a day or two I will write."
He looked at her in pained bewilderment.
"But, Phyllis," he protested, "I am one of your oldest friends! You ask me to go away and leave you here with strangers, without a word of explanation. Why, I have been weeks searching for you."
"Andrew," she said, "I know it. I don't want to be unkind. I don't want you to think that I have forgotten that you are, as you say, one of my oldest friends. But there are times when one's friends are a source of danger rather than pleasure. Frankly, this is one of them."
His face darkened. He looked slowly around the magnificent room. He saw little, but what he could distinguish was impressive.
"Your riddles," he said gravely, "are hard to read. You want me to go away and leave you here."
"You must," she said firmly.
"Did you treat Duncombe like this?" he asked in a blind fit of jealousy.
"You have not the right to ask me such a question," she answered coldly.
"Not the right! Not the right!" he repeated. "Who else has, then? Haven't I watched you grow from a beautiful, capricious child into the woman you are? Haven't I taught you, played with you, done your bidding blindly ever since you came into your kingdom? Haven't I felt the pain and the joy of you in my heart? Who else has a better right, then? Duncombe, who came here, a stranger to you—or is it one of your new friends?"