dreamed of comparing me--to anything soft and docile?"
laughed Constance.

There was another silence. Before them at the end of a long green vista
the gate opening on the main road could be seen.

Constance broke it. "Wounded pride, and stubborn will were hot within
her.

"Well, it is a great pity we should have been sparring like this. I
can't remember who began it. But now I suppose I may do what I like with
the dances I promised you?"

"I keep no one to their word who means to break it," said Falloden
coldly.

Constance grew suddenly white.

"That"--she said quietly--"was unpardonable!"

"It was. I retract it."

"No. You have said it--which means that you could think it. That decides
it."

They rode on in silence. As they neared the gate, Constance, whose face
showed agitation and distress, said abruptly--

"Of course I know I must seem very ungrateful--"

A sound, half bitter, half scornful from Falloden stopped her. She threw
her head back defiantly.

"All the same I could be grateful enough, in my own way, if you would
let me. But what you don't understand is that men can't lord it over
women now as they used to do. You say--you"--she stammered a
little--"you love me. I don't know yet--what I feel. I feel many
different things. But I know this: A man who forbids me to do this and
that--to talk to this person--or dance with some one else--a man who
does not trust and believe in me--if I were ever so much in love with
him, I would not marry him! I should feel myself a coward and a slave!"

"One is always told"--said Falloden hoarsely--"that love makes it easy
to grant even the most difficult things. And I have begged the
merest trifle."

"'Begged'?" said Constance, raising her eyebrows. "You issued a decree.
I am not to dance with Radowitz--and I am not to see so much of Mr.
Sorell--if I am to keep your--friendship. I demurred. You repeated
it--as though you were responsible for what I do, and had a right to
command me. Well, that does not suit me. I am perfectly free, and I have
given you no right to arrange my life for me. So now let us understand
each other."

Falloden shrugged his shoulders.

"You have indeed made it perfectly plain!"

"I meant to," said Constance vehemently.

But they could not keep their eyes from each other. Both were pale. In
both the impulse to throw away pride and hold out a hand of yielding was
all but strong enough to end their quarrel. Both suffered, and if the