charming,
distracting, provocative. If Gwynne had been in love when he came, he
had kissed her very feet when he left, and had been as bewitched as
anyone so clear-brained could be. Moreover, she had promised him
everything he wished, agreed without demur to the hasty marriage, and
even, when he asked her whether she would prefer to live in her house or
his, had sweetly left it to him to decide. They were to spend the
honeymoon in the house on Russian Hill. She was incapable of looking
beyond that. There had been at least twenty bewildering hints that when
his time came one rein, at least, should be his--in all matters of great
moment, two--and although no doubt she would break away very often,
what more delightful than to recapture and subdue? What more could a man
want than the most fascinating woman in the world, whom only his own
passion could shock from mere existence into the fulness of life? But
Gwynne, in the depths of his swimming brain, had wanted something more,
and Isabel knew that if he had slept as ill as herself, the doubt had
more than once assailed him if she were anything more than a charming
beautiful and clever creature, save perverse and egotistical; who would
keep him distractedly in love with her, but leave the best part of him
unsatisfied.

Her perversity had gone with him, and during a more or less wakeful
night she had repented, and even wept at the thought that something
might occur to exterminate him before ten o'clock on the following
morning--when they were to meet again--and he would depart unconsoled by
the knowledge that it was the greater needs in his own nature that had
called to hers. At least she hoped this was so, and, in an excess of
humility, wondered if she really had enough to give--the power to insure
their complete happiness. She had lived in a sort of fool's paradise,
and no doubt imagined herself a far more rounded being than she was.
Well, she could grow, and finally she had curled down into her pillow
and fallen asleep.

This morning she was rather tired, and although still repentant,
suspicious that when he returned her femininity would fly up with her
spirits, and she would be more than content to fascinate and bewilder
him. Like all women in love and fumbling blindly through the outer
mysteries, she was eagerly psychological, discovering once for all her
sex and herself.

Her eyes had been fixed dreamily upon Tamalpais, but suddenly they were
drawn irresistibly upw