. Stop where you are, if
you please, Violet. I have something serious to say to you."

Vixen left off pouring out the tea, clasped her hands in her lap, and
looked at Captain Winstanley with the most resolute expression he had
ever seen in a woman's face.

"Are you going to talk to me about Lord Mallow?" she asked.

"Yes."

"Then spare yourself the trouble. It would be useless."

"I cannot conceive that you should be so besotted as to refuse a man
who offers so much. A man who has wealth, rank, youth, good looks----"

"Spare me the catalogue of your friend's merits. I think him a most
estimable person. I acknowledge his rank and wealth. But I have refused
him."

"You will change your mind."

"I never change my mind."

"You will live to repent your folly then, Miss Tempest: and all I hope
is that your remorse may be keen. It is not one woman in a thousand who
gets such a chance. What are you that you should throw it away?"

"I am a woman who would sooner cut my throat than marry a man I cannot
honestly love," answered Vixen, with unblenching firmness.

"I think I understand your motive," said Captain Winstanley. "Lord
Mallow never had a chance with you. The ground waft occupied before he
came. You are a very foolish girl to reject so good an offer for the
sake of another woman's sweetheart."

"How dare you say that to me?" cried Vixen. "You have usurped my
father's place; you have robbed me of my mother's heart. Is not that
cause enough for me to hate you? I have only one friend left in the
world, Roderick Vawdrey. And you would slander me because I cling to
that old friendship, the last remnant of my happy childhood."

"You might have a dozen such friends, if friendship is all you want,
and be Lady Mallow into the bargain," retorted Captain Winstanley
scornfully. "You are a simpleton to send such a man away despairing.
But I suppose it is idle to ask you to hear reason. I am not your
father, and even if I were, I daresay you would take your own way in
spite of me."

"My father would not have asked me to marry a man I did not love,"
answered Vixen proudly, her eyes clouding with tears even at the
thought of her beloved dead; "and he would have valued Lord Mallow's
rank and fortune no more than I do. But you are so fond of a bargain,"
she added, her eye kindling and her lip curving with bitterest scorn.
"You sold Bullfinch, and now you want to sell me."

"By Heaven, madam, I pity the man who may be fool