"You have no right to talk to me like that. I did not know that you were coming to Brighton, or I would have met you at the station."

"I knew that I should meet you on the pier."

The lady stood still.

"What do you mean by that?"

The gentleman, confronting her, returned her glance for glance.

"I mean what I say. I knew that I should meet you on the pier--and I have."

The lady walked on again; whatever she might think of Mr. Paxton's inference, his actual statement was undeniable.

"You don't seem in the best of tempera, Cyril. How is Mr. Franklyn?"

"He was all right when I saw him last--a good deal better than I was or than I am."

"What is the matter with you? Are you ill?"

"Matter!" Mr. Paxton's tone was bitter. "What is likely to be the matter with the man who, after having had the luck which I have been having lately, to crown it all finds the woman he loves philandering with a stranger--the acquaintance of a shower of rain--on Brighton pier."

"You have no right to speak to me like that--not the slightest! I am perfectly free to do as I please, as you are. And, without condescending to dispute your inferences--though, as you very well know, they are quite unjust!--any attempt at criticism on your part will be resented by me in a manner which you may find unpleasant."

A pause followed the lady's words, which the gentleman did not seem altogether to relish.

"Still the fact remains that I do love you better than anything else in the world."

"Surely if that were so, Cyril, at this time of day you and I would not be situated as we are."

"By which you mean?"

"If you felt for me what you are always protesting that you feel, surely sometimes you would have done as I wished."

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