"It wouldn't make much difference if you did," said Olga. It was really quite useless to attempt to be polite to him if he would come so persistently within snubbing distance. Besides, she really did not owe him any courtesy, after the way he had dared to treat her.
But he only laughed at her, and turned to the door. "I shouldn't be so cocksure of that if I were you," he said, opening it with a flourish. "I have a wonderful knack of getting what I want."
She flung him the gauntlet of her contemptuous defiance as she passed him. "Really?" she said.
He took it up instantly, with disconcerting assurance. "Yes, really," he said.
And to Olga all unbidden there came a sudden little tremor of shuddering remembrance as there flashed across her inner vision the spectacle of a green dragon-fly swooping upon a poor little fluttering scarlet moth.
CHAPTER IV
THE SETTING OF THE WATCH
To return to the Priory with her bête-noir seated in triumph beside her was a trick of fortune that Olga had been very far from anticipating. There was no help for it, however, for he was determined to go thither, notwithstanding her assurance that the master of the house was from home. He leaned back at his ease and watched her drive with frank criticism.
"I had no idea you were so accomplished," he remarked, as they skimmed up the long Priory drive. "I should have thought you were much too nervous to drive a car."
Olga was never nervous except in his presence, but she would have rather died than have had him know it.