ed her hero in
words before, and that she should do it for this man!

"These are the heroes of our youth, Miss Sylvie, and you are very
young," in that insufferably patronizing tone.

"I am old enough to know what I want," she retorted, all the fiery blood
in her pulses leaping to the charge. "I think, too, I can discern
between the true worker, and him who is content with the frivolous
outside show."

"Perhaps not. You have been advising me, now allow me a like privilege.
Do not imagine me actuated by jealousy,--that vice of the Moor is not in
my nature. I have seen with some surprise that your fancies were for
those beneath you in the social scale. A woman always loses in this
dangerous experiment. She seldom raises her commonplace hero to a level
with the gods, and is much more likely to be dragged down."

She turned suddenly, her face flaming scarlet. The indignation misled
him. He took it as a sign of personal anger, and wondered if she could,
if she _dared_, throw him over for that coarse, stupid, blundering
fellow.

"Yes," he continued, glad to stab her in a vulnerable point; "you
certainly have made a mistake, if you think this soul an aspiring one. A
boy who excels in brute strength and force merely, a man who makes a
deliberate choice between the nobler results of education and the
common purposes of rude daily labor, will hardly rank with a knight of
Arthur's time, even if some self-deceived woman chooses to lavish her
affection upon him."

"If you mean Mr. Darcy"-- And she stood quite still, tremulous with
passion.

"I mean Mr. Darcy." She had not shown such delicate consideration for
his feelings that he should hesitate. "I do not see how you, with your
artistic tastes and refinement, can find companionship in such a nature.
I understand it very thoroughly. Beware, for you cannot plead even
daffodil blindness, my fair Persephone."

Sylvie Barry could have struck the man beside her. All the passion of
her nature surged up in contempt, great waves of white heat. If a look
could have annihilated, hers might. Even in the shady gloom, he saw the
flashing eye and quivering lip of scorn.

"Do not distress yourself about me," she answered, with suave
bitterness. "Jack Darcy may be a mill-hand; but he has the honor, the
white soul, of a gentleman! And you--you dare to trample on what was
once a friendship!"

"I believe he was once my admiration because he used to show fight so
easily. He was for marchi