“Under different circumstances I should be the last person to recall anything so—personal. But the circumstances are unusual.” He took an angry step toward me. “Will you tell me what I have done? Or shall I go down and ask the others?”
“You wouldn’t dare,” I cried, “or I will tell them what you did! How you waylaid me on those stairs there, and forced your caresses, your kisses, on me! Oh, I could die with shame!”
The silence that followed was as unexpected as it was ominous. I knew he was staring at me, and I was furious to find myself so emotional, so much more the excited of the two. Finally, I looked up.
“You can not deny it,” I said, a sort of anti-climax.
“No.” He was very quiet, very grim, quite composed. “No,” he repeated judicially. “I do not deny it.”
He did not? Or he would not? Which?
Chapter XIV. ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE
Dal had been acting strangely all day. Once, early in the evening, when I had doubled no trump, he led me a club without apology, and later on, during his dummy, I saw him writing our names on the back of an envelope, and putting numbers after them. At my earliest opportunity I went to Max.
“There is something the matter with Dal, Max,” I volunteered. “He has been acting strangely all day, and just now he was making out a list—names and numbers.”