He started furiously to his feet, flinging the book in his hand away from him. “Pardon! Too late! That threat again! Zounds, madam, you presume. I neither guess nor heed your meaning. I cherish an image, do I? Very well, I cherish it. As to yourself, you are distasteful to me. For what reason? Simply because you are you--no other in the world, I assure you. And, if that is not enough----” He stopped, checked in the midst of his wrath by the look in the eyes before him. It was not submission or fright; it was the spark of a new amazed dawn. That he had said the thing he could never recall occurred to him suddenly with an odd sick qualm. He tried to recover the thread of his discourse, but only to have it tail off into inarticulate stammerings. “Enough?” she said in a low voice. “O, truly--and to spare. Distasteful! Am I that to you? Why, so are all sweets to the carrion-loving dog. Well, I am well content to have your loathing, sir. Will you please be gone: there is nothing noisome here to tempt your palate. _Distasteful!_” She took a step forward, a single one, and his eyes flickered. He thought, perhaps, she was going to strike him. “Now, listen to this,” she said. “I will never, before God, utter word to you again till you have gone down on your knees to me and asked my pardon for that insult.” She turned her shoulder on him and walked apart. He watched her, lowering, and forced a laugh he meant for one of mockery. “Silence between us!” he said. “Be assured I make a second, madam, in that welcome compact.” He sat down again, and, picking up his book, affected to become absorbed in it. But all the time his pulses were thumping and his eyes furtively conning the rebel over the leaf edges. A spot of bright colour was on her cheek; she trilled a little air, as she seated herself in her former position, as naturally and light-heartedly as if she had never a trouble in the world. “Damn her!” he thought. “To take the upper hand of me like that!” His fury heaved and fermented in him like yeast in a dough-pan. He sneered at her pretence of cheerful abstraction. “She is thinking of me,” he reflected, “as I am of her.”