f wrath had ever occurred, that this woman had ever been so
stirred by such cause, that she had ever loved him, that he had ever
dared pretend love to her. The deception and the confession, with all
they had elicited from her, seemed parts of a dream, of some fancy he
had had, some romance he had read.

As for Elizabeth, she knew not, thought not, whether, in bearing him
hot resentment, she still loved him. She knew only that she craved
revenge, and that the first step towards her desired end was to assume
that indifference which so puzzled, interested, and confounded him. A
weak or a stupid woman would have shown a sense of injury, with
flashes of anger. An ordinarily clever woman would have affected
disdain, would have sniffed and looked haughty, would have overdone
her pretended contempt. It is true, Elizabeth had moved slightly out
of her way to pass further from him, but she had done this with
apparent thoughtlessness, as if the act were dictated by some inner
sense of his belonging to an inferior race; not with a visible
intention of showing repulsion. It is true she had assumed ignorance
of his presence, but she had given him to attribute this to a belief
that he had left the room. When his voice declared his whereabouts,
she treated him just as she would have treated any other indifferent
person who was _not quite_ her equal.

Peyton felt more and more uncomfortable. Would she continue playing
the spinet forever, so perfectly at ease, so content not to look at
him again, so assuming it for granted that, the operation of
leave-taking being considered over between hostess and guest, the
guest might properly be gone any moment without further attention on
either side?

He began to fear that, if he did not soon speak, his voice would be
beyond recovery. So, with a desperate resolve to recover his
self-possession at a single _coup_, he blurted out, bunglingly:

"'Tis the first time I have seen you in that gown, madam."

Elizabeth, not ceasing to let her fingers ramble with soft touch over
the keyboard, replied, carelessly:

"I have not worn it in some time."

Having found that he retained the power of speech, he proceeded to
utter frankly his latest thought, concealing the slight bitterness of
it with a pretence of playful, make-believe reproach:

"'Tis not flattering to me, that you never wore it while I was your
guest, yet put it on the moment you thought I had departed."

She answered with good-humored