answered. At length his ear caught a faint, short murmur. 

"N--no." 46

46

"Why not?" he demanded briefly. 

"I would rather not tell you," she replied with a return of her old spirit. 

"You must tell me," he said angrily. "Here come two carriages--oh, why did I never notice how they stopped these things? Reach under my arms and squeeze that horn--quick!" 

The carriages separated and he went, quaking, between them. 

"Now, go on--this luck can hardly last," he warned her. "I intend to know for how much of this nightmare I am responsible." 

"You are responsible for all of it, then," she cried recklessly. "You had not the slightest excuse for making me drink all that nasty, burning stuff!" 

Regardless of his wheel, Antony turned and stared at her, and only her shriek of terror saved them from the stone wall that bordered a curve in the road. 

"You mean you were----" 

"If you dare to say it I shall jump!" she interrupted, plucking nervously at her skirt, and he saw that she was quite capable of carrying out the threat. 47 

47

"But--but you drank it yourself--I thought you knew----" he stammered. 

"It was down in my throat--I couldn't help it--I pushed it away as soon as I could--I never tasted anything but champagne and sherry and I thought they were all the same, those things. . ." 

She was on the point of tears now, and even in his keen sense of danger Antony was conscious of a gratified consciousness of that calm masculine superiority so long denied him. 

"I see, I see," he said hastily. "I am very sorry. I did the best I could at the time: I am not accustomed to resuscitating fainting young ladies and I rather lost my head. I assure you that I assume all the blame." 

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