She looked at him boldly enough.
"I don't know if you are aware of it, but this isn't the way I'm accustomed to be talked to."
"It's the way you're being talked to now," said he. "Who told you?"
"I absolutely refuse to answer if you speak to me like that, Ned!"
"Then we part company, Lilian."
There was no doubt about the apprehension in her eye now. For a moment it seemed to wonder whether he was actually in earnest, and then to decide that he was.
"I—I don't know who told me," she said in an altered voice.
"Did anybody tell you, or did you make it up?"
"I never actually said they were engaged."
He looked at her in silence and very hard, and then he spoke deliberately.