know it? Who told you?"

"You have told me,--by every look and act of yours,--and I'm grateful to
you for it."

"And if I told you now by word that you were fit for it."

"I shouldn't believe you."

"You would n't believe my word?" She did not answer. "I see," he said
presently, "that you doubt me somehow as a man. What is it you think of
me?"

"You wouldn't like to know."

"Oh, yes, I should."

"Well, I will tell you. I think you are a tyrant, and that you want a
slave, not a wife. You wish to be obeyed. You despise women. I don't
mean their minds,--they 're despicable enough, in most cases, as men's
are,--but their nature."

"This is news to me," he said, laughing. "I never knew that I despised
women's nature."

"It's true, whether you knew it or not."

"Do I despise you?"

"You would, if you saw that I was afraid of you: Oh, why do you force me
to say such things? Why don't you spare me--spare yourself?"

"In this cause I couldn't spare myself. I can't bear to give you up!
I'm what I am, whatever you say; but with you, I could be whatever you
would. I could show you that you are wrong if you gave me the chance. I
know that I could make you happy. Listen to me a moment."

"It's useless."

"No! If you have taken the trouble to read me in this way, there must
have been a time when you might have cared."

"There never was any such time. I read you from the first."

"I will go away," he said, after a pause, in which she had risen, and
began a retreat towards the door. "But I will not--I cannot--give you
up. I will see you again."

"No, sir. You shall not see me again. I will not submit to it. I will
not be persecuted." She was trembling, and she knew that he saw her
tremor.

"Well," he said, with a smile that recognized her trepidation, "I will
not persecute you. I'll renounce these pretensions. But I'll ask you to
see me once more, as a friend,--an acquaintance."

"I will not see you again."

"You are rather hard with me, I think," he urged gently. "I don't think
I'm playing the tyrant with you now."

"You are,--the baffled tyrant."

"But if I promised not to offend again, why should you deny me your
acquaintance?"

"Because I don't believe you." She was getting nearer the door, and as
she put her hand behind her and touched the knob, the wild terror she
had felt, lest he should reach it first and prevent her escape, left
her. "You are treating me like a child that does n't know its own m