"When you were with me on the veranda."
Her eyes opened to their widest, so surprised that the lashes had no time for their usual play.
"Was that what you call making love, Mr. Sandys?" she inquired.
"I call a spade a spade."
"And now you are apologizing to me, I understand?"
"If you can in the goodness of your heart forgive me, Lady Pippinworth—"
"Oh, I do," she said heartily, "I do. But how stupid you must have thought me not even to know! I feel that it is I who ought to apologize. What a number of ways there seem to be of making love, and yours is such an odd way!"
Now to apologize for playing a poor part is one thing, and to put up with the charge of playing a part poorly is quite another. Nevertheless, he kept his temper.
"You have discovered an excellent way of punishing me," he said manfully, "and I submit. Indeed, I admire you the more. So I am paying you a compliment when I whisper that I know you knew."
But she would not have it. "You are so strangely dense to-night," she said. "Surely, if I had known, I would have stopped you. You forget that I am a married woman," she added, remembering Pips rather late in the day.