“Things! What things?”

“I fancy you know.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she answered uneasily. “What sort of things?”

“The last sort of things in the world I want to hear.”

She looked away making no answer and he said:

“I’ve heard that Rion Gracey is in love with you.”

“Oh, is that it?” she commented in a low voice.

Her manner irritated him. She did not seem to realize the seriousness of the charge.

“Yes—that’s it,” he replied, continuing to regard her with a look of pugnacious ill-humor.

She again made no reply and he persisted angrily: