"Not on Richard's," she answered. "On my own." And now that the ice was broken, the suspense of waiting over, she found the tide of her courage flowing fast. "This encounter must not take place, Mr. Wilding," she informed him.
He raised his eyebrows--fine and level as her own--his thin lips smiled never so faintly. "It is, I think," said he, "for Richard to prevent it The chance was his last night. It shall be his again when we meet. If he will express regret..." He left his sentence there. In truth he mocked her, though she guessed it not.
"You mean," said she, "that if he makes apology...?"
"What else? What other way remains?"
She shook her head, and, if pale, her face was resolute, her glance steady.
"That is impossible," she told him. "Last night--as I have the story--he might have done it without shame. To-day it is too late. To tender his apology on the ground would be to proclaim himself a coward."
Mr. Wilding pursed his lips and shifted his position. "It is difficult, perhaps," said he, "but not impossible."
"It is impossible," she insisted firmly.
"I'll not quarrel with you for a word," he answered, mighty agreeable. "Call it impossible, if you will. Admit, however, that it is all I can suggest. You will do me the justice, I am sure, to see that in expressing my willingness to accept your brother's expressions of regret I am proving myself once more your very obedient servant. But that it is you who ask it--and whose desires are my commands--I should let no man go unpunished for an insult such as your brother put upon me."
She winced at his words, at the bow with which he had professed himself once more her servant.
"It is no clemency that you offer him," she said. "You leave him a choice between death and dishonour."
"He has," Wilding reminded her, "the chance of combat."
She flung back her head impatiently. "I think you mock me," said she.
He looked at her keenly. "Will you tell me plainly, madam," he begged, "what you would have me do?"
She flushed under his gaze, and the flush told him what he sought to learn. There was, of course, another way, and she had thought of it; but she lacked--as well she might, all things considered--the courage to propose it. She had come to Mr. Wilding in the vague hope that he himself would choose the heroic part. And he, to punish for her scorn of him this woman whom he loved to hating-point, was resolved that she herself must beg it of him. Whether, having so far compelled her, he would grant her prayer or not was something he could not just then himself have told you. She bowed her head in silence, and Wilding, that faint smile, half friendliness, half mockery, hovering ever on his lips, turned aside and moved softly towards the window. Her eyes, veiled behind the long lashes of their drooping lids, followed him furtively. She felt that she hated him in very truth. She marked the upright elegance of his figure, the easy grace of his movements, the fine aristocratic mould of the aquiline face, which she beheld in profile; and she hated him the more for these outward favours that must commend him to no lack of women. He was too masterful. He made her realize too keenly her own weakness and that of Richard. She felt that just now he controlled the vice that held her fast--her affection for her brother. And because of that she hated him the more. "You see, Mistress Westmacott," said he, his shoulder to her, his tone sweet to the point of sadness, "that there is nothing else." She stood, her eyes following the pattern of the parquetry, her foot unconsciously tracing it; her courage ebbed, and she had no answer for him. After a pause he spoke again, still without turning. "If that was not enough to suit your ends"--and though he spoke in a tone of ever-increasing sadness, there glinted through it the faintest ray of mockery--"I marvel you should have come to Zoyland--to compromise yourself to so little purpose."