ateful green eyes. You are quite
young enough and pretty enough to win a good man's regard, if you were
a penniless unprotected widow, needing a husband to shelter you and
provide for you. But you are the natural victim of such a man as
Captain Winstanley."

"You are altogether unjust and unreasonable," exclaimed Mrs. Tempest,
weeping copiously. "Your poor dear father spoiled you. No one but a
spoiled child would talk as you are talking. Who made you a judge of
Captain Winstanley? It is not true that he ever wanted to marry you. I
don't believe it for an instant."

"Very well, mother. If you are wilfully blind----"

"I am not blind. I have lived twice as long as you have. I am a better
judge of human nature than you can be."

"Not of your admirer's, your flatterer's nature," cried Vixen. "He has
slavered you with pretty speeches and soft words, as the cobra slavers
his victim, and he will devour you, as the cobra does. He will swallow
up your peace of mind, your self-respect, your independence, your
money--all good things you possess. He will make you contemptible in
the eyes of all who know you. He will make you base in your own eyes."

"It is not true. You are blinded by prejudice."

"I want to save you from yourself, if I can."

"You are too late to save me, as you call it. Captain Winstanley has
touched my heart by his patient devotion, I have not been so easily won
as you seem to imagine. I have refused him three times. He knows that I
had made up my mind never to marry again. Nothing was farther from my
thoughts than a second marriage. I liked him as a companion and friend.
That he knew. But I never intended that he should be more to me than a
friend. He knew that. His patience has conquered me. Such devotion as
he has given me has not often been offered to a woman. I do not think
any woman living could resist it. He is all that is good and noble, and
I am assured, Violet, that as a second father----"

Vixen interrupted her with a cry of horror.

"For God's sake, mamma, do not utter the word 'father' in conjunction
with his name. He may become your husband--I have no power to prevent
that evil--but he shall never call himself my father."

"What happiness can there be for any of us, Violet, when you start with
such prejudices?" whimpered Mrs. Tempest.

"I do not expect there will be much," said Vixen. "Good-night, mamma."

"You are very unkind. You won't even stop to hear how it came
about--how Conrad