"You will," she said quickly.
"I don't know why I should." Piers' voice was dogged. "He'll know fast enough—when she gets engaged to Guyes."
"Know that you have played a double game," said Avery.
"Well?" he said. "And if he does?"
"I think you will be sorry—then," she said.
Somehow she could not be angry any longer. He had accepted her rebuke in so docile a spirit. She did not wholly understand his attitude. Yet it softened her.
"Why should I be sorry?" said Piers.
She answered him quickly and impulsively. "Because it isn't your nature to deceive. You are too honest at heart to do it and be happy."
"Happy!" said Piers, an odd note of emotion in his voice. "Do you suppose
I'm ever that—or ever likely to be?"
She recoiled a little from the suppressed vehemence of his tone, but almost instantly he put out his hand again to her with a gesture of boyish persuasion.