Her anger had usually the effect of reducing Ruby to sulks or submission. To-night she became defiant, and replied, looking at her persecutor with shining, fascinated eyes. (And no wonder, thought Ambrose, as he pictured the slim, contemptuous figure that had the matter of subjugation in hand.) “You think it’s for you to decide, Lychnis. It isn’t. We’ve made up our minds to consider ourselves in future.” “You’ve been plotting with Fulke, have you?” Ruby’s eyes quivered. “Let me tell you daddy thinks so, too. If we want to go now we shall.” “Not without my permission—and Yuan’s.” “Oh, Yuan! Why don’t you go to him altogether?” The words had slipped out, and with the realization of what she had said came the end of her courage. The reply darted at her was, “Get into bed.” She still had an ounce or two. “I won’t!” “Do you remember last time you said that?” Ruby remembered a night when a fury who exuded a sort of elemental invincibleness had used a slipper on her until she howled for pain. She did not care for pain. Lychnis slid in beside her, and switched out all the lights in the room except the one that hung in the ebony ceiling of their bed. “You hate it when that light goes out, don’t you?” she asked in a cold voice. “Every night you shake for fear of the strangeness of this house and this valley and the tall, plum-cheeked Yuan with gimlet eyes. When the queer moonlight creeps in through the lattices, as if Yuan were there, flooding us with some cold emanation of his cold, unhuman spirit, you lie and tremble. I am going to put the light out now.” She switched it out with one hand and with the other gave Ruby a pinch. Ruby sat up. “I hate you! Oh, you beast, I hate you!” “You’d better ask Fulke to do something about it.” Lychnis spoke in a ghostly voice. But all at once Ruby collapsed into her pillow and began violently crying. “Don’t—oh, please don’t tease me about Fulke!” she sobbed. Lychnis had an intimation. “What’s the matter?” For some time there was no answer; then a buried voice came from the pillow: “I can’t bear you to speak of him.” A silence. Then: “I—I want him. I love him.” Lychnis peered into the dim moonlight, silent for a little. Then: “But, my dear, I didn’t realize it was like that. I am surprised.” She put her arms round Ruby. “Since when?” There followed long confidences and comfortings. “And that’s why,” concluded the afflicted one, “I said I hate you. I’ve been hating you a long time—because you keep him from me!” Lychnis smiled in the dark. “But don’t you see? That’s nearly over. You will have him from me altogether—very soon.”