"May I venture to ask what enabled you to come to a decision?"
"I would rather not answer the question," she replied, coldly.
"Will you tell me if your mind was made up yesterday morning?" he asked, insidiously.
"It was not. But pray, Count Schönstein, don't say anything more about this at present. Consider the position I am in just now——"
"I only wish to have a few words from you for my further guidance, Miss Brunel," he said. "You came to this decision last night. Last night you saw Mr. Anerley. Have I not a right to ask you if he had anything to do with it?"
"You have no such right," she said, indignantly.
"Then I take your refusal to mean that he had. Are you aware that he is engaged to be married? Do you know that he is a beggar, and his father also? Do you know——?"
"I hope I may be allowed to be free from insult in my own house," she said, as she rose and—with a wonderful dignity, and pride, and grace that abashed and awed him—walked out of the room.
A dim sort of compunction seized him, and he would willingly have followed her, and begged her to pardon what he had said. Then he, too, felt a little hurt, remembering that he was a Count, and she an actress. Finally, he quietly withdrew, found a servant at the door waiting to let him out, and departed from the house with a heavy heart.
"A woman's 'no' generally means 'yes,'" he said to himself, disconsolately trying to extract comfort from the old proverb.