her. "But I can't help it!"

IX

Isabel rose as usual at five, but, instead of dressing at once, stood at
her window idly and looked out over the marsh. Thirteen hours before she
had made a decision on the instant, or so it seemed to her, and in that
instant changed her life so completely that she was still a little
dizzy, and the future as yet had taken on no coherent form. She had even
told Gwynne she was positive she could _stand_ him for ever, and this,
with her varied if incomplete knowledge of his sex, she took to be even
more significant and hopeful than the uncompromising sense of loving
him. No doubt there would be many interesting battles before two such
developed personalities became more or less one, but at least he had
none of the petty and selfish and altogether detestable qualities of her
father, her uncle, and Lyster Stone; and he was entirely human. And he
was young and she was young. It all seemed very wonderful; wonderful to
be so happy, and yet to feel that she had relinquished nothing, or at
least not the tenth of what she would have lost if she had married
Prestage--or any other man. If she had not met Gwynne she knew that she
never should have married at all, and, not having had the best within
her ken, been happy enough.

And yet she was a little sad, and it was by no means the gentle
melancholy of reaction. She had reason, and felt a disposition to box
her own ears. She knew that Gwynne, triumphant and happy as he was, had
ridden away vaguely dissatisfied. He had turned and given her a keen
questioning glance as he mounted, and had not turned again. She had
laughed, and waved her hand, and felt a new desire to tantalize him.

She had abandoned herself to sheer happiness the day before, to the mere
pagan delight in an ardent lover come in her own ardent youth, to the
sense of an unbroken circle of companionship, and to so wild a triumph
in having brought Gwynne to her feet, made him quite mad about her, that
she had fairly danced about the room, and tormented him as far as she
dared.

This was Wednesday. They were to be married on Saturday, that Lady
Victoria, who was leaving for England in the evening, might nod them a
blessing. Then, no doubt, Gwynne would have his way in most things, and
she already felt the stirrings of mere female ductility. But meanwhile
she should exercise and enjoy her own power to the full. And she had
good reason to believe that no woman had ever been more