ant of dislike came into his eyes and compressed
his lips. From the day of their marriage this woman had thwarted and
baffled him. He had tried to get the mastery of her, but he had
failed, and the sense of that failure angered him. He had been used
to dominating every one with whom he came into any sort of close
contact. He had married this American girl with the determination to
dominate her, and he had found himself as powerless as if she had
been a mist maiden. There was no way in which he could lay hold upon
her.

Concerning Bettina's attitude toward him he had a theory. He believed
that she had really loved Horace. She was too absolutely in the
shadow of the sorrow of her mother's death to give full play to any
other feeling, but he had always felt, in every effort that he had
made to win her, that it was the image of Horace Spotswood in her
mind which put him in total eclipse. This theory time had deepened.
His suspicious watchfulness over her every word and look had made
him aware that she listened with interest when Horace's name was
mentioned, and his imagination heightened the effect of her interest,
and caused him to conjecture as to what she might have heard and
felt at such times as he was not by. Moreover, a certain secret
consciousness in his own soul stimulated him in his suspicions.

CHAPTER VIII

During the early weeks of their marriage Lord Hurdly, while changing
his attitude from the solicitude of the pursuer to the masterfulness
of the possessor, had certainly made some effort to win Bettina,
while she, on her part, had tried to oblige him by responding to his
professions for her. Both were aware that this effort had been made
on both sides, and that it had quite failed. By the time the
honey-moon was over, Lord Hurdly had, to all appearance, ceased to
care. The consciousness of this was an immense relief to Bettina, and
she had felt ever since that in doing him credit in the eyes of the
world she would satisfy his first object in having her for a wife. In
this she had not failed. There was a distinct estrangement between
them, but it had never been necessary to define it. Whatever
disagreements there had been, only themselves were aware of. Lord
Hurdly would have felt his authority over her incomplete indeed if
he had ever had to assert it in public.

As for Bettina, a singular change of feeling was going on within her.
She had made her test of the world, and found that she had overra