 caused her to start. She called, and Jasper came in.
    »Why are you still up?« he asked, avoiding her look as he moved forward and
took a leaning attitude behind an easy-chair.
    »Oh, I don't know. Do you want anything?«
    There was a pause; then Jasper said in an unsteady voice:
    »I am not given to lying, Dora, and I feel confoundedly uncomfortable about
what I said to you early this evening. I didn't lie in the ordinary sense; it's
true enough that I have never told anyone that my engagement was at an end. But
I have acted as if it were, and it's better I should tell you.«
    His sister gazed at him with indignation.
    »You have acted as if you were free?«
    »Yes. I have proposed to Miss Rupert. How Mrs Lane and that lot have come to
know anything about this I don't understand. I am not aware of any connecting
link between them and the Ruperts, or the Barlows either. Perhaps there are
none; most likely the rumour has no foundation in their knowledge. Still, it is
better that I should have told you. Miss Rupert has never heard that I was
engaged, nor have her friends the Barlows - at least I don't see how they could
have done. She may have told Mrs Barlow of my proposal - probably would; and
this may somehow have got round to those other people. But Maud didn't make any
mention of Miss Rupert, did she?«
    Dora replied with a cold negative.
    »Well, there's the state of things. It isn't pleasant, but that's what I
have done.«
    »Do you mean that Miss Rupert has accepted you?«
    »No. I wrote to her. She answered that she was going to Germany for a few
weeks, and that I should have her reply whilst she was away. I am waiting.«
    »But what name is to be given to behaviour such as this?«
    »Listen: didn't you know perfectly well that this must be the end of it?«
    »Do you suppose I thought you utterly shameless and cruel beyond words?«
    »I suppose I am both. It was a moment of desperate temptation though. I had
dined at the Ruperts' - you remember - and it seemed to me there was no
mistaking the girl's manner.«
    »Don't call her a girl!« broke in Dora
