Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/86

 “No, I might put you to a test that would be difficult.”

“Try me.”

“Very well, I will. Go back to London in the morning.”

He looked at her and laughed.

“Why?”

“It will be easier for you to be patient there than here”

“When Hammersley comes?”

“Oh,” she said quickly, “then he is coming?”

“I don’t know why he shouldn’t,” he said slowly.

There was a pause.

“Shall you go?”

“To London? I’ll think about it.”

“There! You see? You refuse my first request.”

“I would like to know your purpose.”

“I think you know it already,” she put in quickly. “You want something that I cannot give you—something that is not mine to give.”

She had come out into the open defiantly and he met her challenge with a laugh.

“Because it is Hammersley’s?” he said. “You think so and Hammersley thinks so, and possession is nine points of the law. But I will contest.”

“Your visit is vain. Go back to London, my friend.”

“I find it pleasanter here.”

“Then you refuse?”

“I must.”

“Then it is war between us.”

“If you will have it so,” he said, with an inclination of the head. Doris put her foot on the fender and leaned with her hands upon her knee for a moment as