"Threats that are idle on some lips are anything but idle on ours, as I think you have already begun to perceive. I therefore turned pale and said no more, but all night the tormenting terror was upon me, and when the next day came I was but little fitted to sustain the reputation for beauty which I had so unfortunately earned from a distasteful man's lips the day before. "But Antony Harding was not one to easily change his first impressions. He had made up his mind that I was beautiful, and he kept to that opinion to the last. I had dressed myself in my most expensive but least becoming gown, and I wore my hair in a way to shock the taste of most men. But I saw from the first moment that his eyes fell on my face that this made no difference to him, and that I must take other means to disillusionize him. So then I resorted to a display of stupidity. I did not talk, and looked, if I looked at all, as if I did not understand. But he had seen glimpses of brightness in me the day before, and this ruse succeeded no better than the other. He even acted as if he admired me more as a breathing, sullen image than as a living, combative woman. "My father, who watched us as he never had watched anything before but rising bubbles of gas or accumulating crystals, did not show the displeasure I feared, possibly because he saw that I was failing in all my endeavors; and when the meal over, he led the way to the parlor, he even smiled upon me in a not altogether unfriendly way. I felt a sinking of the heart when I saw that smile. Better to me were his frowns, for that smile told me that, love or no love, liking or no liking, I was to be made the bait to win this man's money for the uses of chemistry. "Walking steadfastly into the parlor, I met the stranger's admiring eye. "'You would not think,' I remarked, 'that my life at present was enclosed within these four walls.' "It was the first sentence I had voluntarily addressed him, and it must have struck him as a very peculiar one. "'I do not understand what you mean,' he returned, with that unctuous smile which to me was so detestable. 'Something interesting, I have no doubt.' "'Very interesting,' I dryly rejoined. 'I have taken a vow never to leave this house, and I mean to keep it.' "He stared at me now in some apprehension, and my heart gave a bound of delight. I had frightened him. He thought I was demented. "My father, seeing his look of astonishment, but not knowing what I had said, here advanced and unconsciously made matters worse by remarking, with an effort at jocularity: "'Don't mind what Hermione says; for a smart girl and a good one, she sometimes talks very peculiarly.' "'I should think so,' my companion's manner seemed to assert, but he gave a sudden laugh, and made some observation which I scarcely heard in my fierce determination to end this matter at once. "'Do you not think,' I persisted, 'that a woman who has doomed herself to perpetual seclusion has a right to be peculiar?'