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Rh Elsie did not answer. He released her hand. There had been something very strange, she thought, in his clasp. It had given her an odd tingling sensation, which no other touch had ever produced. She wondered whether there was any truth in the idea that some people were magnetic. He looked at her all the time. He went on:

"Yes, I admire Frank Hallett. I don't believe he would do a dishonourable thing to save his life. He has all the sterling virtues. But he is—you must own it—he is something of the Philistine, and I am a Bohemian rebel to the very core of me, and can't be expected to feel that deep sympathy with his views of life which perhaps you feel, Miss Valliant."

"I think," she said slowly, "that I have a little of the Bohemian in me, too."

He laughed. "Oh, yes, I know that. Didn't I tell you that we were something akin? Well, I wonder if you will be as generous a foe as Mr. Frank Hallett."

"As generous a foe!" she repeated, startled.

"We are fighting, aren't we? Don't you remember that challenge of the other night? I accepted it. Don't you recollect our talk that evening—before I told you of my friendship with Jensen? I beg your pardon for alluding again to what you said was disagreeable."

"I understand," she said coldly; "you want to avenge Mr. Jensen's wrongs. That is what you were thinking of."

"I beg your pardon," he said. "It wasn't to be a case of avenging anyone or anything—nothing so melodramatic. It was to be a trial of skill, a tournament between a young lady, who frankly owned that she had played with a man's heart—and who had ruined his life—for an experiment, and another person who confessed to having played justly or unjustly for amusement at the game of flirtation. That's all. There is nothing melodramatic about it. And it was understood that hearts were not in the business."

"Mr. Blake, you are cruel—you have no right—it is unfair."