He was holding himself very straight and stiff, just as he had held himself on that day in the winter when she had so indignantly intervened to save his dog from his ungovernable fury. But he did not seem to resent her attack, and in spite of herself Avery's own resentment began to wane. She suddenly remembered that her very protest was an admission of intimacy of which he would not scruple to avail himself if it suited his purpose, and with this thought in her mind she paused in confusion.
"Won't you finish?" said Piers.
She turned to leave him. "That's all I have to say."
He put out a restraining hand. "Then may I say something?"
The request was so humbly uttered that she could not refuse it. She remained where she was.
"I should like you to know," said Piers, "that I have never given Miss Rose or any other girl with whom I have flirted the faintest shadow of a reason for believing that I was in earnest. That is the truth—on my honour."
"I wonder if—they—would say the same," said Avery.
He shrugged his shoulders. "No one ever before accused me of being a lady-killer. As to your other charge against me, it was not I who deceived my grandfather. It was he who deceived himself."
"Isn't that a distinction without a difference?" said Avery, in a low voice.
She was beginning to wish that she had not spoken with such vehemence. After all, what were his delinquencies to her? She almost expected him to ask the question; but he did not.