“Can you?”
They had strolled down the steps as they talked, and at their right hand a picturesque little alley, with a vista of fountain and statue against a grove of ilex-trees, led away from the more open space in front of the house. Down this alley, secluded and apparently deserted, Miss Pomeroy turned, as if unconsciously, before she spoke again. Julian followed her lead with an ugly smile on his face.
Then she said in the same pretty, low voice:
“Tell me what circumstances?”
Julian laughed, and his laugh might well have been construed as a sign of extreme nervousness and agitation.
“I think not!” he said. “I might make you angry.”
“You would not make me angry!”
They came to the end of the alley as she spoke; it opened out on a quaint little corner containing a fish-pond surrounded by a stone balustrade, the fountain in the middle sparkling and dancing in the gleam of the artificial moonlight which had been arranged here and there about the grounds to give the finishing touch to sundry “bits.” Into this moonlight Maud Pomeroy stepped, and stood leaning gracefully over the balustrade gazing down into the water, as she said in a voice just low and hesitating enough to be perfectly distinct:
“Mr. Romayne, will you tell me—did you think me very angry when you came to-night?”