"Yes—that is the man. He's been asking me for months to go away with him, but I've refused. I didn't tell him why, but I'm going to tell you now. I wouldn't go until you'd come home, and I'd seen you again, and made sure—that——"
She hesitated, and the man laughed grimly.
"Made sure that you really did love Mr. Jimmy Staunton more than me! Dreadful thing to make a second mistake."
"Put it that way, if you like," she answered, quietly. "Though it wasn't from quite such baldly selfish motives that I refused to go with him. I tried, Hugh, to argue the thing out as best I could; I tried to be fair to him and to you. I realized that I might be wrong—that I didn't really love him——" the man by the fireplace made a quick, convulsive movement, "and anyway I realized that I must give you a chance if you want to have it. If, after what I've told you, you decide to let me go—well and good; we can arrange details easily. If, on the other hand, you refuse, and in the course of a month, say, I find that I was not mistaken, and that I'm fonder of Jimmy than I am of you, well, I shall have to take the law into my own hands."
Hugh Massingham laughed shortly.
"I see," he answered. "You have put things very clearly." He turned on her with an expressionless face. "I take it, then, that as matters stand at present, I am on trial."
"If you wish," she said. "I realize that you have a perfect right to refuse that trial, and tell me to go; but, after all your goodness to me, I could not do less than offer it to you."
"Your generosity touches me," he remarked, grimly. "And——"
It was at that moment that the servant opened the door and announced: "Mr. Staunton."
"Are you coming to Hector's, Delia?"