ire and action. She
was actually able to look--as the first Reuben Vanderpoel would have
looked--at her capital of resource. But it meant taut holding of the
reins.

"Will you tell me," she said, stopping, "what it is you want?"

"I want to talk to you. I want to tell you truths you would rather
be told here than on the high road, where people are passing--or at
Stornham, where the servants would overhear and Rosalie be thrown into
hysterics. You will NOT run screaming across the marsh, because I should
run screaming after you, and we should both look silly. Here is a rather
scraggy tree. Will you sit on the mound near it--for Rosalie's sake?"

"I will not sit down," replied Betty, "but I will listen, because it is
not a bad idea that I should understand you. But to begin with, I will
tell you something." She stopped beneath the tree and stood with her
back against its trunk. "I pick up things by noticing people closely,
and I have realised that all your life you have counted upon getting
your own way because you saw that people--especially women--have a
horror of public scenes, and will submit to almost anything to avoid
them. That is true very often, but not always."

Her eyes, which were well opened, were quite the blue of steel, and
rested directly upon him. "I, for instance, would let you make a scene
with me anywhere you chose--in Bond Street--in Piccadilly--on the steps
of Buckingham Palace, as I was getting out of my carriage to attend a
drawing-room--and you would gain nothing you wanted by it--nothing. You
may place entire confidence in that statement."

He stared back at her, momentarily half-magnetised, and then broke forth
into a harsh half-laugh.

"You are so damned handsome that nothing else matters. I'm hanged if it
does!" and the words were an exclamation. He drew still nearer to her,
speaking with a sort of savagery. "Cannot you see that you could do
what you pleased with me? You are too magnificent a thing for a man to
withstand. I have lost my head and gone to the devil through you. That
is what I came to say."

In the few seconds of silence that followed, his breath came quickly
again and he was even paler than before.

"You came to me to say THAT?" asked Betty.

"Yes--to say it before you drove me to other things."

Her gaze was for a moment even slightly wondering. He presented the
curious picture of a cynical man of the world, for the time being ruled
and impelled only by the most pri