n this country are a pretty good sample."

"There's a rude vein in you," Barbara declared. "One sees it sometimes,
although you're sometimes kind. Anyhow, I won't be bullied and
controlled; I'm not a shareholder in the Cartwright line. I don't know
if it's important, but why don't you like Mr. Shillito?"

Cartwright's eyes twinkled. In a sense, he could justify his getting rid
of Shillito, but he knew Barbara and doubted if she could be persuaded.
Still she was not a fool, and he would give her something to think
about.

"It's possible my views are not important," he agreed. "All the same,
when I told the man he had better go he saw the force of my arguments.
He went, and I think his going is significant. Since I'd sooner not
quarrel, I'll leave you to weigh this."

He went off, but Barbara stopped and brooded. She was angry and
humiliated, but perhaps the worst was she had a vague notion Cartwright
might be justified. It was very strange Shillito had gone. All the same,
she did not mean to submit. Her mother's placid conventionality had long
irritated her; one got tired of galling rules and criticism. She was not
going to be molded into a calculating prude like Grace, or a prig like
Mortimer. They did not know the ridiculous good-form they cultivated was
out of date. In fact, she had had enough and meant to rebel.

Then she began to think about Shillito. His carelessness was strangely
intriguing; he stood for adventure and all the romance she had known.
Besides, he was a handsome fellow; she liked his reckless twinkle and
his coolness where coolness was needed. For all that, she would not
acknowledge him her lover; Barbara did not know if she really wanted a
lover yet. She imagined Cartwright had got near the mark when he said
she wanted to try her power. Cartwright was keen, although Barbara
sensed something in him that was fierce and primitive.

Perhaps nobody else could have bullied Shillito; Mortimer certainly
could not, but Barbara refused to speculate about the means Cartwright
had used.

Shillito ought not to have gone without seeing her; this was where it
hurt. She was entitled to be angry--and then she started, for a page boy
came quietly out of the shade.

"A note, miss," he said with a grin. "I was to give it you when nobody
was around."

Barbara's heart beat, but she gave the boy a quarter and opened the
envelope. The note was short and not romantic. Shillito stated he had
grounds for imagining i