"Why, to make a confession. You laughed at me just now when I presumed to criticize your favorite modern comedy. As a matter of fact, I have every right to criticize it. You see, I happen to be the author. I am 'John Kennedy'! I have been writing for the stage, or trying to write for the stage, for years. I got my new idea from that old wish of my uncle's that you and I should come together. It struck me as a pretty suggestion for a comedy."
"Stop, stop," Ethel cried. "One thing at a time, if you please. Positively you overwhelm me with surprise. In one breath you tell me you are 'John Kennedy,' and then, without giving a poor girl a chance, you say you are the owner of Goldney Park."
"But I didn't," Chesney protested. "I never said anything of the kind."
"No, but you inferred it. You say you got the idea from your uncle—I mean the suggestion that you and I—oh, I really cannot say it."
"I'm afraid I'm but a poor dramatist after all," Chesney said lamely. "I intended to keep that confession till after I had—but no matter. At any rate, there is no getting away from the fact that my pen name is 'John Kennedy.'"
"And you wrote 'Flies in Ointment'? And you have been laughing at me all this time? You were amused because I took you for a simple countryman, you whom men call the Sheridan of to-day! After all the pains I took with your education."
Ethel's voice rose hysterically. Points of flame stood out from the level of her memory of the past five weeks and scorched her. How this man must have been amused, how consumedly he must have laughed at her! And she had never guessed it, never once had she had an inkling of the truth.
"You have behaved disgracefully, cruelly," she said unsteadily.
"I don't think so," Chesney said coolly. "After all is said and done, we were both posing, you know. You were playing 'Mrs. Kent' to my hero. It seemed a pity to disturb so pleasant a pastoral. And no harm has been done."
Ethel was not quite so sure of that. But then for the nonce she was regarding the matter from a strictly personal point of view.