a moment of rage would smite to the
earth. As Elise approached womanhood, these emotions were intensified,
but were otherwise unmodified. There was another element which came as a
natural temporal sequence. She had seen with unseeing eyes young girls
given in marriage; she had no question but that a like fate was in store
for her. So it happened that when Pierre, announcing to her her
sixteenth birthday, had likewise broached the subject of marriage she
opposed it not on rational grounds but simply on general principles. She
was not at first conscious of any objections to Morrison. Being ignorant
of marriage she had no grounds upon which to base a choice. To her
Morrison was no better and no worse than any other man she had met.
Morrison was perfectly right in his assumptions. Had not circumstances
interfered, in the end he would have had his way. Morrison was also
perfectly wrong. Elise was not Madame in any sense of the word. His
reign would have been at least troubled, if not in the end usurped. The
first circumstance which had already interfered to prevent the
realisation of his desire was one which, very naturally, would be the
last to appeal to him. This circumstance was Zephyr.

From the earliest infancy of Elise, Zephyr had been, in a way, her
constant guardian and companion. With enough strength of character to
make him fearless, it was insufficient to arouse the ambition to carve
out a distinctive position for himself. He absorbed and mastered
whatever came in his way, but there his ambition ceased. He was
respected and, to a certain extent, feared, even by those who were
naturally possessed of stronger natures.

There may be something in the fabled power of the human eye to cow a
savage beast, but unfortunately it will probably never be satisfactorily
demonstrated. A man confronted with the beast will invariably and
instinctively trust to his concrete "44" rather than to the abstract
force of human magnetism. Yet there is a germ of truth in the proverbial
statement. Brought face to face with his human antagonist, the thinking
man always stands in fear of himself, of his sense of justice, while the
brute in his opponent has no scruples and no desires save those of
personal triumph.

These things Elise did not see. The things she saw which appealed to her
and influenced her were, first of all, Zephyr's fearlessness of others
who were feared, his good-natured, philosophical cynicism which
ridiculed foibles th