should promptly have hurled the nearest
object--plate, wineglass, or decanter--in the face of the speaker.
He knew, too, that women cannot hurl projectiles without looking like
viragos and fools. The weakly-feminine might burst into tears or into a
silly rage and leave the table. There was a distinct breath's space
of pause, and Betty, cutting a cluster from a bunch of hothouse grapes
presented by the footman at her side, answered as clearly as he had
spoken himself.

"He is strong enough to produce an effect on anyone," she said. "I think
you feel that yourself. He is a man who will not be beaten in the end.
Fortune will give him some good thing."

"He is a fellow who knows well enough on which hand of him good things
lie," he said. "He will take all that offers itself."

"Why not?" Betty said impartially.

"There must be no riding or driving in the neighbourhood of the place,"
he said next. "I will have no risks run." He turned and addressed the
butler. "Jennings, tell the servants that those are my orders."

He sat over his wine but a short time that evening, and when he joined
his wife and sister-in-law in the drawing-room he went at once to Betty.
In fact, he was in the condition when a man cannot keep away from
a woman, but must invent some reason for reaching her whether it is
fatuous or plausible.

"What I said to Jennings was an order to you as well as to the people
below stairs. I know you are particularly fond of riding in the
direction of Mount Dunstan. You are in my care so long as you are in my
house."

"Orders are not necessary," Betty replied. "The day is past when one
rushed to smooth pillows and give the wrong medicine when one's friends
were ill. If one is not a properly-trained nurse, it is wiser not to
risk being very much in the way."

He spoke over her shoulder, dropping his voice, though Lady Anstruthers
sat apart, appearing to read.

"Don't think I am fool enough not to understand. You have yourself under
magnificent control, but a woman passionately in love cannot keep a
certain look out of her eyes."

He was standing on the hearth. Betty swung herself lightly round, facing
him squarely. Her full look was splendid.

"If it is there--let it stay," she said. "I would not keep it out of my
eyes if I could, and, you are right, I could not if I would--if it is
there. If it is--let it stay."

The daring, throbbing, human truth of her made his brain whirl. To a man
young and clean and