at betrayed itself
in many acts and signs,--as when he brushed against her; and occasionally
when he gave evidence with his subordinates of a certain shortness of
temper unusual with him she experienced a vaguely alarming but delicious
thrill of power. And this, of all men, was the great Mr. Ditmar! Was she
in love with him? That question did not trouble her either. She continued
to experience in his presence waves of antagonism and attraction,
revealing to her depths and possibilities of her nature that frightened
while they fascinated. It never occurred to her to desist. That craving
in her for high adventure was not to be denied.

On summer evenings it had been Ditmar's habit when in Hampton to stroll
about his lawn, from time to time changing the position of the sprinkler,
smoking a cigar, and reflecting pleasantly upon his existence. His house,
as he gazed at it against the whitening sky, was an eminently
satisfactory abode, his wife was dead, his children gave him no trouble;
he felt a glow of paternal pride in his son as the boy raced up and down
the sidewalk on a bicycle; George was manly, large and strong for his
age, and had a domineering way with other boys that gave Ditmar secret
pleasure. Of Amy, who was showing a tendency to stoutness, and who had
inherited her mother's liking for candy and romances, Ditmar thought
scarcely at all: he would glance at her as she lounged, reading, in a
chair on the porch, but she did not come within his range of problems. He
had, in short, everything to make a reasonable man content, a life nicely
compounded of sustenance, pleasure, and business,--business naturally
being the greatest of these. He was--though he did not know it--ethically
and philosophically right in squaring his morals with his occupation, and
his had been the good fortune to live in a world whose codes and
conventions had been carefully adjusted to the pursuit of that particular
brand of happiness he had made his own. Why, then, in the name of that
happiness, of the peace and sanity and pleasurable effort it had brought
him, had he allowed and even encouraged the advent of a new element that
threatened to destroy the equilibrium achieved? an element refusing to be
classified under the head of property, since it involved something he
desired and could not buy? A woman who was not property, who resisted the
attempt to be turned into property, was an anomaly in Ditmar's universe.
He had not, of course, existed