de, his
assurance of himself, and his desire for her all at the same time.

Silas rarely bothered about girls, yet he knew that he had the power to
fascinate any woman once he put his mind to the work. He had not tried his
powers of fascination on Phyl. It was the other way about. Phyl absolutely
unconsciously had used her fascination upon him.

Something in her, recognised by him on their first meeting in the stable
yard, had put away the barrier of sex. He had talked to her as if she had
been a boy. Sitting on the seat beside her whilst the Colonel had been
prosing over politics and tobacco, the prompting came to Silas to pinch
her finger just for fun; when he had put his hands over her eyes that
night it was in obedience to the same prompting, but at the moment of
parting from her, a desire quite new had overmastered him.

He had kissed a good many girls, but never in his life had he kissed a
girl as he kissed Phyl.

Something cynical in his feelings for the other sex had always left him
somewhat cold, but Phyl was different from the others, she had in some way
struck straight at his real being.

When he left her that night at Grangersons he was almost as disturbed as
she.

He scarcely slept. He was out at dawn and on his return after she had left
he sat down and wrote the letter which Phyl received next morning.

Silas was in love for the first time in his life, but love with Silas was
a thing apart from the love of ordinary men.

There was no worship of the object; the something that crystallises out in
the form of love-letters, verses, bouquets, and candy was not there. He
wanted Phyl.

He had no more idea of marriage than the great god Pan. If she had
consented he would have taken her off on that yawl of his imagination
round the world or down to Florida, without thought of the morrow or the
_convenances_, or Society; but please do not imagine this rather primitive
gentleman a chartered libertine. He would have married her as soon as not,
but he had neither the genius nor the inclination for the courtship that
leads by slow degrees up to the question, "Will you marry me?"

He wanted her at once.

As he walked along now with the devil awake in his heart, he felt no anger
towards Phyl; all his rage was against Pinckney; he had never liked
Pinckney, he more than suspected that Phyl cared for him and he wanted
some one to hate badly.

He had walked himself into a reasonable state of mind when he found