"Yes."
"May I ask, Mr. Armstrong, your reason for taking so extraordinary a step?"
"I wanted to talk to you."
Laline's heart sank within her. Surely he could not have recognised her?
"I have not the slightest wish for any conversation with you, Mr. Armstrong!" she said, in a voice which it needed all her self-control to render firm. "May I ask you to ring the bell, that the servant may inform Mr. Alexander Wallace that I am here?"
"Wait a minute! I want to go back to something you said the last time I saw you!"
"There is no need, and I must decline to discuss the subject. If you do not ring the bell, Mr. Armstrong, I shall!"
She moved quickly towards the fireplace. She was horribly afraid of being left alone with him. Something in his coarse and masterful personality affected her with a sense of mingled fear and repulsion, and it seemed difficult for her to breathe the same air with him.
"I want," he repeated, doggedly, coming between her and the fireplace, "to speak to you about what you said when I last saw you."
"Pardon me," she exclaimed, flashing a look of deep scorn upon him, "that was not the last time I saw you! Much later, between ten and eleven at night, I was passing along the High Street, Kensington, and I saw you again!"