hould have cared for
Jolliffe; there wasn't much in him beyond his capacity for fun; he was
inclined to be fast in a foolish sort of way; a man's man rather than one
for whom a woman could feel much respect. Still he was not vicious like
the other, for whom my dislike increased every time I saw him.

"Well, Archie Jolliffe fell in love with me and in his impetuous way made
no secret of it. I need not say it did not take long for my step-mother
to become aware of it, and with the idea that I was encouraging him she
became furious. Except that poor Archie was a welcome change from the
atmosphere of my home and the hateful attentions of the man who was
always being left alone with me, I did not really care for him, and but
for Mrs. Morriston's attitude I should have told him it was no use his
thinking of me. Considering the sequel, I wish I had done so; but it is
too late now for regrets. His love-making gave me a chance of defying my
stepmother, and I rather enjoyed baulking her plans to keep Archie and me
apart. If I did not encourage him--indeed, I refused him every time he
proposed--I did not dismiss him as I ought to have done, and he evidently
had an idea that perseverance would win the day. And so, after a
fashion, it did.

"Matters reached such a pitch at last that it became plain that I must
either consent to marry the man I loathed or leave my home for good.
Goaded on by my apparent encouragement of Archie Jolliffe, my stepmother
resolved to bring matters to a crisis. She started a terrific row with me
one day, my father was brought into it, and I stood up against them both.
The upshot was that when the interview was over I went out of the house
boiling with indignation and for the time utterly reckless. Chance caught
the psychological moment and threw me in the way of Archie Jolliffe. He
saw something was wrong and pressed me to tell him what had happened. He
was so chivalrous and sympathetic that I was led in my turbulent state of
mind to become confidential, the more so when he told me he had known for
some time how I was being treated.

"'You must not marry that man,' he said 'It is an outrage for your people
to suggest such a thing. He is a big swell and all that, with heaps of
money, but any man in town who knows anything will tell you he is quite
impossible,'

"I had heard that, and had told my stepmother, but of course it did not
suit her to heed me. She cared for nothing beyond the fact that I should