"Unlike you, Miss Cullen, I always accept an apology."
"Indeed! Then my experience in that respect has, I presume, been the exception which proves the rule."
"May I ask when you apologised to me--and for what?"
"This evening,"--the lady looked down; her voice dropped; thrusting the toe of her little shoe from under the hem of her skirt, she tapped it against the floor--"for becoming a wife."
The grim man behind the table regarded her intently. Although he knew that the minx was worsting him with his own weapons, she appealed to, at any rate, one side of him so strongly that he was unable to prevent the corners of his mouth from wrinkling themselves into a smile.
"May I ask, Mrs. Stanham----"
"Sir Tristram!" She threw out her arms towards him with a pretty little gesture. "You have set my heart all beating! You have brought the tears right to my eyes! You are the first person who has called me by my married name."
He moved his hand with a little air of deprecation--as if the thing were nothing.
"May I ask, Mrs. Stanham, if Mr. Thomas Stanham is related to the Duke of Datchet?"
"Related?--Of course he is!--He's his favourite cousin."