"Why—I came to this house, took my rooms, simply because I knew that you were here——"
"That I was here?"
"Yes. I was looking about in this part of the world for rooms. I wanted to be—near Portland Place, you know. I came here and old Mrs. Tweed talked a lot and then, after a time, I said something—about my grandmother. And then she told me that someone who lived here did secretarial work for my aunt——"
He stopped abruptly.
"Well?" said Lizzie, laughing. "All this is not very terrible."
"Then, you see, I determined to stay. I was full of absurd ideas just at the time, thought that I was going to take some great revenge—I was quite melodramatic. And so I thought that I'd use you, get to know you and then, through you—do something or another."
Lizzie eyed him with merriment. "Upon my word, what were you going to make me do? Carry bombs into your aunt's bedroom or set fire to the Portland Place house? Tell me, I should like to know——"
"Ah," he said, "it's all very well for you to laugh. It's very kind of you to take it that way, but lots of women wouldn't have liked it. They'd have thought it another of the things I'm always accused of doing, I suppose."
"No," said Lizzie gravely, "it was all perfectly natural. I understand. I should have done just the same kind of thing, I expect, if I'd been in your place."
The fierceness of his voice showed her that he had been brooding for weeks, and that life was, just now, harder than he could endure.