"Ariadne," he interrupted, and she thought how handsome he looked as he stood there before her, the lights from the candelabra illuminating his face. "Ariadne, let us say no more on the matter. There is no need. I will go now----"
"Now! So soon! Oh, God! Geoffrey!" regarding his face, "you do not believe me! Instead, you believe that I have met--seen this man. Is that it?"
For answer he looked at her--once; yet said nothing. What could he say, he asked himself, having heard those words?
"You do not believe me," she insisted. "Speak, then; say so in as many words, Sir Geoffrey Barry. I command you!" And now, slim girl as she was, and only as yet on the threshold of womanhood, she stood before him as calm and full of dignity as though her years were far riper.
If she were an actress, he told himself, at least she was a good one!
"Say it," she repeated; "let there be no misunderstanding. Say that you do not believe me!"
"You forgot," he answered at last, his eyes upon the floor, "to close that door when you spoke to your woman. And I heard your words--'that I had seen him!'"
"Ah!" And now the girl gave a cry of despair, her dignity and her defiance leaving her in a moment, while, as she uttered that cry, she sank prostrate on to the couch where but a little while before they had sat together. "You heard them!"
"Yes. I heard them."
"And you suspect that this man, this stranger, is my lover? Mine! The lover of the woman who is your affianced wife!"