t of frenzy of panic, followed by unsought explanations. Ilseboro
was just the reverse. He yielded because he had a positive wish to
adjust himself, as far as possible, to her wishes. Lydia began to be not
afraid of him, for like Caesar she was not liable to fear, but dimly
aware that his was a stronger nature than her own. This means either
love or hate. There had been a few hours one evening when she had felt
grateful, admiring, eager to give up; when if she had loved him at all
she could have worshiped him. But she did not love him, and when she saw
that what he was looking forward to was fitting her into a niche which
he'd been building for centuries for the wives of the Ilseboros she
really hated him.

Ever since her childhood the prospect of laying aside her own will had
stirred her to revolt. She could still remember waking herself up with a
start in terror at the thought that in sleep she would doff her will for
so many hours. Later her father had wished to send her to a fashionable
boarding school; but she had made such wild scenes at the idea of being
shut up--of being one of a community--that the plan had been given up.
She would have married anyone in order to be free, but being already
uncommonly free she rebelled at the idea of giving up her individuality
by marriage, particularly by marriage with Ilseboro. She broke her
engagement. Ilseboro had loved her and made himself disagreeable. She
never forgot the parting curse he put upon her.

"The trouble with being such a damned bully as you are, my dear Lydia,"
he said, "is that you'll always get such second-rate playmates."

She answered that no one ought to know better than he did. His manner to
her servants had long secretly shocked her. He spoke to them without one
shade of humanity in his tone, yet oddly enough they all liked him
except the chauffeur, who was an American and couldn't bear him, feeling
the very essence of class superiority in that tone.

A few months later she showed an English illustrated to Miss Bennett.

"A picture of the girl Ilseboro is going to marry."

There was a pause while Miss Bennett read those romantic words: "A
marriage has been arranged and will shortly take place between George
Frederick Albert Reade, Marquis of Ilseboro, and----"

"She looks like a lady," said Miss Bennett.

"She looks like a rabbit," said Lydia. "Just think how Freddy will order
her about!"

It was not in her nature to feel remorse for her well-