are usually civil to me."

"O, indeed! and pray how do I treat you?"

"Like a dog," he sneered gruffly.

"Like a pet poodle," she replied, "whom I allow to lie about the house
in the snuggest corners; like a pet poodle whom I fondle when he is
agreeable, and humor when he is snappish; but take care how you behave
or I may think you are only a puppy."

Duncan jumped to his feet. "I won't be blackguarded," he muttered
angrily.

Helen leaned forward and caught his hand.

"Come, Duncan, dear," she said, drawing him gently toward her, "you must
sit down and tell me who it was that commenced this quarrel."

Duncan permitted himself to be drawn to the seat beside her. His heart
was consumed with conflicting sentiments, but he felt that the courage
which had made the quarrel in January possible was failing, and that he
would be compelled to sue for peace. "I am not a child," he said, as
though to expostulate against her manner.

"Yes, you are," answered Helen softly, "but a big, lovable child of whom
I am very fond."

Duncan looked into her eyes to see if he could read behind her words,
but he only felt the deep, mysterious power which had brought him under
her influence that day in Newport. Then he had felt a hopeful, honest
love, for a moment, but it had been crushed out by her laughter. Before
that he had been a thoughtless boy, taking life as only a holiday
frolic. Had she given him her love, he felt that to him life would have
been different; but that laughter had chilled his heart, and the
hopeful, honest love had gone out forever. She had married and he had
loved her again, but it was a feeling of a different sort, for the man
who speaks of love to a married woman casts out honesty from his heart.
He loved her with a heated longing which her coldness fanned. He wanted
to possess her for his own, yet felt that he was balked by his stupidity
and cowardice. In her presence he was a shrinking child with the
yearning of a man. "Helen," he said, after a moment, "I will not be
played with; I am too much in earnest."

"You frighten me by your seriousness," she said, with a roguish tone in
her voice. "I like you better when you are angry. It suits you."

"I will not be trifled with, Helen," he said; "you have no right to
treat me so."

"I have the right of a billigerent," she laughed. "You declared war, you
remember."

"Then I sue for peace."

"And I grant it," she replied softly, putting out her hand. "Come, l