l, slender strength of her, the lightness of her step, her
grace when she danced, her spirited pose when she rode. Here was the
woman, the one woman, to bear his name, to be the mistress of his
house. She was the only woman he had ever really wished to marry.
And she was nominally married to Peter Champneys.

Hayden was honorable. Had hers been a real marriage, had she been a
happy wife, he would have respected the tie that bound her, and
gone his way. But the situation was exceptional. She wasn't really a
wife at all, and like Mrs. Vandervelde, he could see in such a
marriage nothing but a cause for mutual disgust and dislike. Well,
then, if he loved her, and Peter Champneys didn't, he certainly was
not working Peter Champneys any harm in winning away from him a wife
he didn't want. Why should he stand aside and let her go, for such a
shadow as that ceremony had been? The Champneys money? That meant
nothing weighed in the balance with his desire. He could give her as
much, and more, than she would forego. Mrs. Berkeley Hayden would
eclipse Mrs. Peter Champneys.

Deliberately, then, but delicately, after his fashion, Hayden set
himself to win Anne Champneys. He felt that his passion for her gave
him the right. He meant to make her happy. She could have her
marriage annulled. Then she would become Mrs. Berkeley Hayden. Even
the fact that he really knew very little about her did not trouble
him. He coveted her, and he meant to have her.

He read the young Italian's sonnets, which she had inspired, and
they made him thoughtful. He could readily understand the depths of
feeling such a woman could arouse. Had she no heart, as the Italian
lamented? He wondered. It came to him that she was, in truth,
detached, sufficient to herself, an ungregarious creature moving
solitarily in a mysterious world all her own. What did she think?
What did she feel? He didn't know. He was allowed to see certain
aspects of her intelligence, and her quickness of perception, the
delicacy of her fancy, her childlike and morning freshness, and a
pungently shrewd Americanism that flashed out at odd and unexpected
moments, never failed to delight him. But her deeper thoughts, her
real feelings, her heart, remained sealed and closed to him.

He saw half-pleasedly, half-jealously the interest she aroused in
other men. Nothing but her almost unbelievable indifference held his
jealousy in check. He reflected with satisfaction that she was
on a friendl