"Why?" he said. "Because you hold me back, you check me at every turn. You harness me to your chariot wheels, and I have to run in the path of virtue whether I will or not!"
He broke off with a laugh that had in it a note of savagery.
"Don't you even care to know what was in that letter that you never had?" he asked abruptly.
"Tell me!" she said.
"I told you that I was mad to have missed you that day. I begged you to let me have a line before you came again. I besought you to let me call upon you and to fix a day. I signed myself your humble and devoted slave, Napoleon Errol."
He ceased, still laughing queerly, with his lower lip between his teeth.
Anne stood silent for many seconds.
At last, "You must never come to see me," she said very decidedly.
"Not if I bring the mother as a chaperon?" he jested.
"Neither you nor your mother must ever come to see me again," she said firmly. "And—Nap—though I know that the writing of that letter meant nothing whatever to you, I am more sorry than I can say that you sent it."