'I think they are. So much so that, as I look back upon that time, there are some things I don't understand even now.'
'I don't see why you should look back. People in our position are supposed to look forward.'
'You don't like those Baden days yourself,' said Bernard. 'You don't like to think of them.'
'What a wonderful discovery!'
Bernard looked at her a moment in the brightening fire-light.
'What part was it you tried to play there?'
Angela shook her head.
'Men are dull creatures.'
'I have already granted that, and I am eating humble pie in asking for an explanation.'
'What did you say of me?' Angela asked, after a silence.
'I said you were a coquette. Remember that I am simply historical.'
She got up and stood in front of the fire, having her hand on the chimney-piece and looking down at the blaze. For some moments she remained there. Bernard could not see her face.
'I said you were a dangerous woman to marry,' he went on deliberately. 'I said it because I thought it. I gave Gordon an opinion about you—it was a very unfavorable one. I could n't make you out—I thought you were playing a double part. I believed that you were ready to marry him, and yet I saw—I thought I saw—' and Bernard paused again.
'What did you see?' and Angela turned toward him.
'That you were encouraging me—playing with me.'
'And you did n't like that?'
'I liked it immensely—for myself! But did n't like it for Gordon; and I must do myself the justice to say that I thought more of him than of myself.'
'You were an excellent friend,' said Angela, simply.
'I believe I was. And I am so still,' Bernard added.
She shook her head sadly.
'Poor Mr. Wright!'
'He is a dear good fellow,' said Bernard.
'Thoroughly good, and dear, doubtless to his wife, the affectionate Blanche.'
'You don't like him—you don't like her,' said Bernard.
'Those are two very different matters. I am very sorry for Mr. Wright.'
'You need n't be that. He is doing very well.'
'So you have already informed me. But I am sorry for him, all the same.'
'That does n't answer my question,' Bernard exclaimed, with a certain irritation. 'What part were you playing?'
'What part do you think?'
'Have n't I told you I gave it up, long ago?'
Angela stood with her back to the fire, looking at him; her hands were locked behind her.
'Did it ever strike you that my position at Baden was a charming one?—knowing that I had been handed over to you to be put under the microscope—like an insect with a pin stuck through it!'
'How in the world did you know it? I thought we were particularly careful.'
'How can a woman help knowing such a thing? She guesses it—she discovers it by instinct; especially if she be a proud woman.'
'Ah,' said Bernard, 'if pride is a source of information, you must be a prodigy of knowledge!'
'I don't know that you are particularly humble!' the girl retorted. 'The meekest and most submissive of her sex would not have consented to have such a bargain as that made about her—such a trick played upon her!'
'My dearest Angela, it was no bargain—no trick!' Bernard interposed.
'It was a clumsy trick—it was a bad bargain!' she declared. 'At any rate I hated it—I hated the idea of your pretending to pass judgment upon me; of your having come to Baden for the purpose. It was as if Mr. Wright had been buying a horse and you had undertaken to put me through my paces!'
'I undertook nothing—I declined to undertake.'
'You certainly made a study of me—and I was determined you should get your lesson wrong. I determined to embarrass, to mislead, to defeat you. Or rather, I did n't determine; I simply obeyed a natural impulse of self- defence—the impulse to evade the fierce light of criticism. I wished to put you in the wrong.'
'You did it all very well. You put me admirably in the wrong.'
'The only justification for my doing it at all was my doing it well,' said Angela.
