ruel," he went on lightly, "to deny anything, however
small, to a young lady who has always had her own way. But in
self-defense I must do it."

"Why DO I take these things from you?" she cried, in sudden
exasperation. And touching her horse with her stick, she was off at a
gallop.

IX

From anger against Victor Dorn, Jane passed to anger against herself.
This was soon followed by a mood of self-denunciation, by astonishment
at the follies of which she had been guilty, by shame for them. She
could not scoff or scorn herself out of the infatuation. But at least
she could control herself against yielding to it. Recalling and
reviewing all he had said, she--that is, her vanity--decided that the
most important remark, the only really important remark, was his
declaration of disbelief in her sincerity. "The reason he has repulsed
me--and a very good reason it is--is that he thinks I am simply amusing
myself. If he thought I was in earnest, he would act very differently.
Very shrewd of him!"

Did she believe this? Certainly not. But she convinced herself that
she believed it, and so saved her pride. From this point she proceeded
by easy stages to doubting whether, if Victor had taken her at her
word, she would have married him. And soon she had convinced herself
that she had gone so far only through her passion for conquest, that at
the first sign of his yielding her good sense would have asserted
itself and she could have retreated.

"He knew me better than I knew myself," said she--not so thoroughly
convinced as her pride would have liked, but far better content with
herself than in those unhappy hours of humiliation after her last talk
with him.

From the beginning of her infatuation there had been only a few days,
hardly more than a few hours, when the voice of prudence and good sense
had been silenced. Yes, he was right; they were not suited to each
other, and a marriage between them would have been absurd. He did
belong to a different, to a lower class, and he could never have
understood her. Refinement, taste, the things of the life of luxury
and leisure were incomprehensible to him. It might be unjust that the
many had to toil in squalor and sordidness while the few were
privileged to cultivate and to enjoy the graces and the beauties; but,
unjust or in some mysterious way just, there was the fact. Her life
was marked out for her; she was of the elect. She would do well to
accept her good