"Well, aren't you engaged to him? Won't even he—?" she broke off and sniggered impertinently.
"I am not. Most certainly not," said Noreen hotly. "I insist on your answering me. Did you say that I had told you we were and asked you to keep it a secret?"
"No, I did not. Who did I tell?" snapped the other woman.
"Me for one," broke in a voice; and Dermot took a step forward. "You told me very clearly and precisely, Mrs. Rice, that Miss Daleham had confided to you under the pledge of secrecy—which, by the way, you were breaking—that she was engaged to this man."
There was an uncomfortable pause. Noreen glanced gratefully at her champion. The other men shifted uneasily, and Mrs. Rice's husband, who was standing at the bar, hastily hid his face in a whiskey and soda.
Noreen turned again to her traducer.
"Will you kindly contradict your false statement?" she asked.
The other woman looked down sullenly and made no reply.
"Then I shall," continued the girl. She faced the group of men before her, Payne and Travers by her side.
"I ask you to believe, gentlemen, that there never was nor could be any question of an engagement between Mr. Chunerbutty and me," she said firmly. "And I give you my word of honour that I never said such a thing to Mrs. Rice."