"What ails you now?" she asked, feigning uneasiness.
He laughed that hard short laugh once more.
"What can ail me, dear heart? A tête-à-tête with the most charming of cousins! Her husband safely out of the way, all scruples of conscience overcome; God Almighty Himself an accomplice. Could I wish for anything better?"
"Leo, don't; you frighten me," she said, and crouched back in her armchair.
"Why should you be frightened, my dear child?" he answered, taking her hand. "I have become a little wilder these last few days, that is all. That is, I have been trying not to come, like the honourable man I was once. There! That promise at the ferry, dear heart--(I always called you dear heart in old days, so, now we are so intimate, I may again, eh?)--that promise was rubbish, you wormed it out of me, because you are such a sly card; and----"
"Leo, please, you hurt me," she protested, covering two tearful eyes with her hand.
He caught her roughly by the arm and wrenched her hand from her face.
"You shan't cry," he growled. "I can't bear to see you cry. Although I know your crying, like your laughter, is a farce, I can't stand your tears. Why not laugh instead? it all amounts to the same thing."
"Oh, if you should be heard talking like this!"
"What would it matter?" but nevertheless his eye wandered in some anxiety to the half-open doors.