a shiver ran through her, but
still she made no movement, was cold to him as marble. "You coward!" she
said softly, with an infinite contempt.

"Your lips," he continued to catalogue, "are ripe as fresh flesh of
Southern fruit. No cupid ever possessed so adorable a mouth. A worshiper
of Eros I, as now I prove."

This time it was the mouth he kissed, the while her unconquered spirit
looked out of the brave eyes, and fain would have murdered him. In turn
he kissed her cold cheeks, the tip of one of her little ears, the small,
clenched fist with which she longed to strike him.

"Are you quite through?"

"For the present, and now, having put the seal of my ownership on her
more obvious charms, I'll take my bride home."

"I would die first."

"Nay, you'll die later, Madam Bannister, but not for many years, I
hope," he told her, with a theatrical bow.

"Do you think me so weak a thing as your words imply?"

"Rather so strong that the glory of overcoming y'u fills me with joy.
Believe me, madam, though your master I am not less your slave," he
mocked.

"You are neither my master nor my slave, but a thing I detest," she
said, in a low voice that carried extraordinary intensity.

"And obey," he added, suavely. "Come, madam, to horse, for our
honeymoon."

"I tell you I shall not go."

"Then, in faith, we'll re-enact a modern edition of 'The Taming of the
Shrew.' Y'u'll find me, sweet, as apt at the part as old Petruchio." He
paced complacently up the room and back, and quoted glibly:

"And thus I'll curb her mad and headstrong humor. He that knows better
how to tame a shrew, Now let him, speak; 'tis charity to show."

"Would you take me against my will?"

"Y'u have said it. What's your will to me? What I want I take. And I
sure want my beautiful shrew." His half-shuttered eyes gloated on her as
he rattled off a couple more lines from the play he had mentioned.

"Kate, like the hazel-twig, Is straight and slender, and as brown in hue
As hazel-nuts, and sweeter than the kernels."

She let a swift glance travel anxiously to the door. "You are in a very
poetical mood to-day."

"As befits a bridegroom, my own." He stepped lightly to the window and
tapped twice on the pane. "A signal to bring the horses round. If y'u
have any preparations to make, any trousseau to prepare, y'u better set
that girl of yours to work."

"I have no preparations to make."

"Coming to me simply as y'u are? Good! We'll lead the simp