"Look here!" He got up out of his chair and stood with his back to the fire. He kept a fretful silence for a moment and then said, with a sharp burst of exasperation: "Look here, I don't know what you're driving at! I only know that you're being most infernally rude!"
"Don't forget that a moment ago you were asking me not to take offence."
"You're damned clever, aren't you?" he almost snarled.
That was all he could think of in the way of an answer to her. He stood there swaying lightly in front of the fire, nursing, as it were, his angry bafflement.
"Thank you," she replied. "I regard that as a very high tribute. And I'm nearly as pleased at one other thing—I seem to have shaken you partly out of your delightful and infuriating urbanity.... But now, we're not here to compliment each other. You've got something you want to say to me, haven't you?"
He stared at her severely and said: "Yes, I have. I want to ask you not to come here any more."
"Why?" She shot the word out at him almost before he had finished speaking.
"Because I don't wish you to."
"You forget that I come at Helen's invitation, not at yours."
"I see I shall have to tell you the real reason, then. I would have preferred not to have done. My wife is jealous of you."