Quarrier's face had colour enough now; his voice, too, had lost its passionless, monotonous precision. Whatever was in the man of emotion was astir; his impatient voice, his lack of poise, the almost human lack of caution in his speech betrayed him in a new and interesting light.
“Look here, Agatha, how long is this going to last? Are you trying to make a fool of me? What is the matter? Is there anything wrong?”
“Wrong? Oh dear no! How could there be anything wrong between you and me—”
“Agatha, what is the matter! Look here; let's settle this thing now and settle it one way or the other! I won't stand it; I—I can't!”
“Very well,” she said, releasing herself from his tightening arms and stepping back with another glance at the mirror and another light touch of her finger-tips on her burnished hair. “Very well,” she repeated, gazing again into the mirror; “what am I to understand, Howard?”
“You know what to understand,” he said in a low voice; “you know what we both understood when—when—”
“When what?”
“When I—when you—”
“Oh what, Howard?” she prompted indolently; and he answered in brutal exasperation, and for the first time so plainly that a hint of rose tinted her strange, pale beauty and between her lips the breath came less regularly as she stood there looking at the dull, silvery rug under her feet.
“Did you ever misunderstand me?” he demanded hotly. “Did I give you any chance to? Were you ignorant of what that meant,” with a gesture toward the splendid crescent of flashing gems, scintillating where the low, lace bodice met the silky lustre of her skin. “Did you misinterpret the collar? Or the sudden change of fortune in your own family's concerns? Answer me, Agatha, once for all. But you need not answer after all: I know you have never misunderstood me!”