“How charming it must be to have had a great romance,” said Sylvia, half laughing and yet wholly earnest--“one of those tremendous passions, you know, that teaches one all one can know! I am afraid I shall never have one, unless dear little Lewis comes to the rescue.” “You will know it one day, and that without Lewis,” answered Skelton. “Some women are formed for grand passions, just as men come into the world with aptitude for great affairs.” “But how can I know it--here?” asked Sylvia impatiently. “See how circumscribed our lives are! I never knew it until lately, and then it came home to me, as it does every day, that the great, wide, beautiful, exciting world is not as far removed as another planet, which I used to fancy. But when I want to see the world, papa and mamma tell me they will take me to the Springs! That’s not the world. It is only a little piece of this county picked up and put down in another county.” Skelton was sitting on the bench by her. He watched her lovely, dissatisfied eyes as they glanced impatiently and contemptuously on the still and beautiful scene. Yes, it would be something to teach this woman how much there was beyond the mere beauty and plenty and ease of a country life in a remote provincial place. Sylvia caught his eyes fixed on her so searchingly that she coloured again--the blood that morning was perpetually playing hide and seek in her cheeks. Skelton went on in a strain rather calculated to foster than to soothe her impatience. He saw at once that he could produce almost any effect he wanted upon her, and that is a power with which men and women are seldom forbearing. Certainly Skelton was not. He loved power better than anything on earth, and the conquest of a woman worth conquering gave him infinite pleasure. He felt this intoxication of power as he watched Sylvia. Although he was not a vain man, he could almost have fixed the instant when she, who had been long trembling on the brink of falling in love with him, suddenly lost her balance. They had sat in the summerhouse a long time, although it seemed short to them. Their voices unconsciously dropped to a low key, and there were eloquent stretches of silence between them. The noon was gone, and they heard the faint sound of the bugle calling the hands to work in the fields after the midday rest. Sylvia started, and rose as if to go. Skelton, without moving, looked at her with a strange expression of command in his eyes. He touched the tips of her fingers lightly, and that touch brought her back instantly to his side.