akling--but, as you say,
each of them is without power. Each of them is a parasite and you are
the oak upon which they grow and bloom. But as for me--" She stopped and
laughed, and suddenly Hamilton Burton realized that his sister Mary was
not the child he had always regarded her: not the slip of a girl that
had been sent away in the infancy of his fortune to be educated abroad,
but a woman of twenty-five, and an unusual woman.

"As for me," she continued slowly, "I think you have made a mistake.
Whence, _mon cher_, came this fire in your soul which told you back
there in the barren hills that you were not like little men? May it not
be that this genius came to you from some remote ancestor? May it not
be that also into my veins crept some of that fire? _Alors!_ Whether
that be true or no, this I do of a certainty believe. The spirit of
fight that is in you, is likewise in me. You will not find in me the
_jeune fille_ who shall obey without knowing why. My feet are small--for
which I thank _le bon Dieu_--but I can stand quite stanchly upon them.
You boast of the princely gifts that you have bestowed upon me. For
those I am not unthankful, but I shall not regard them as the price of
blind obedience. If they have been given in that spirit, you have done
for me nothing more than other men have done for--for their mistresses."

She ended and stood very calm in her anger while the brother who had
never before been successfully defied gazed into her face with an
expression of amazement. Then slowly there came over his own a glow of
keen admiration.

He came over and bowed with almost courtly ceremony, then he laughed.

"Mary," he exclaimed, "we shall fight, you and I, but we shall reign
together. By God, you are my sister! Not just by coincidence of birth,
but by the deeper kinship of our two souls. Great heavens, girl, since I
came here to fight and to win, I've been lonely. It's not egotism but
truth that makes me say this. I have been a conqueror--and all
conquerors are lonely. You are mistress here. Do as you wish." He went
back to the safe, but he looked up and laughed in a naive and winning
fashion that was quite irresistible.

"By the way," he suggested, "are you going to do me the honor to
breakfast with me hereafter?"

The girl laughed, too, and her eyes were as serenely gracious as a
queen's may afford to be when, of her own will, she makes a royal
concession.

"Yes, I shall breakfast with you, _mon cher_ br