“Because—it is the only way. You could always have beaten me at talking——”
“You had no right to kiss me.”
“I think I had. If a woman has a right to torment a man as you tormented me, he surely has a right to take whatever means he can of—getting even. Women are so brutal——”
He had found, she felt, the solution to the Eternal riddle.
Her heart was beating furiously, but her voice, as she went on, was cool enough.
“Look here, Teddy, I will tell you the truth about all this. Will you believe me?”
After a second’s hesitation he answered, curtly: “Yes.”
“Well—you are right. I mean your—method is right. It never occurred to me before that—well, that turn about is fair play. Women are brutes—particularly, perhaps, the good ones who flirt.”
Cleeve laughed. “‘The good ones who flirt.’ Go on!”
“And I suppose you were, in a way, entitled to use against me the only weapons you had. You see, I am quite frank. Only—you used them too soon. I don’t love you. Probably, if we had been together a week longer, I should have, but—I do not love you at this minute.”