"Admitting that it was so, will you explain why you cannot take a hint?"
"I will," Dane said quietly, though he was once more maladroit. "I wished to ask why you have avoided me like contagion lately?"
"Is that a necessary question, or is it generous to place the onus of such an explanation upon me?"
"Perhaps not," he admitted. "I am not so quick of wit as I could wish, to-day, but I am going away early to-morrow, and it may be very long before I see you again; so I could not help asking it. We have known each other a long time, Lily, and I would not care to leave England feeling that you were displeased with me."
"Have I told you that I was displeased?" asked the girl.
"Speech was hardly necessary."
Lilian Chatterton was not deficient in courage, and she no longer tried to evade the difficulty. "Please understand that I have neither the right nor the desire to inquire into your motives, but—since you insist—there are limits within which one must restrict one's friendship; and after comparing your own account of your nocturnal adventures with what I heard Mr. Black relate about your conduct in court to-day, it is hardly possible to avoid concluding that you have overstepped them."
"There may be an explanation. Is it fair, as you reminded that very gentleman, to condemn any one unheard?"
"Can you furnish one?" asked Lilian, with a quickness which was not wholly lost upon her companion. If he had spoken plainly, it is possible that the explanation might have changed a good deal for both of them; but that was just what the man had pledged himself not to do. He was not a casuist, and, having no time for reflection, saw only one course open to him. It was too late when he realized that it was the worst one possible from any point of view.
"I am afraid I cannot, at present," he said.