“I didn’t send any.”
The two measured each other for a moment, but Lily still saw her opponent through a blur of scorn that made all other considerations indistinct.
“I can’t imagine your object in playing such a stupid trick on me; but if you have fully gratified your peculiar sense of humour I must again ask you to send for a cab.”
It was the wrong note, and she knew it as she spoke. To be stung by irony it is not necessary to understand it, and the angry streaks on Trenor’s face might have been raised by an actual lash.
“Look here, Lily, don’t take that high and mighty tone with me.” He had again moved toward the door, and in her instinctive shrinking from him she let him regain command of the threshold. “I DID play a trick on you; I own up to it; but if you think I’m ashamed you’re mistaken. Lord knows I’ve been patient enough—I’ve hung round and looked like an ass. And all the while you were letting a lot of other fellows make up to you . . . letting ’em make fun of me, I daresay . . . I’m not sharp, and can’t dress my friends up to look funny, as you do . . . but I can tell when it’s being done to me.... I can tell fast enough when I’m made a fool of....”
“Ah, I shouldn’t have thought that!” flashed from Lily; but her laugh dropped to silence under his look.
“No; you wouldn’t have thought it; but you’ll know better now. That’s what you’re here for tonight. I’ve been waiting for a quiet time to talk things over, and now I’ve got it I mean to make you hear me out.”
His first rush of inarticulate resentment had been followed by a steadiness and concentration of tone more disconcerting to Lily than the excitement preceding it. For a moment her presence of mind forsook her. She had more than once been in situations where a quick sword-play of wit had been needful to cover her retreat; but her frightened heart-throbs told her that here such skill would not avail.
To gain time she repeated: “I don’t understand what you want.”
Trenor had pushed a chair between herself and the door. He threw himself in it, and leaned back, looking up at her.