"Not a master--a slave!" says Gower, impulsively. There's such evident and earnest meaning in his tone that she colors violently, and, with a rather open manifestation of shrinking, withdraws her hand from his clasp; the pencil falls to the ground, but Roger has turned aside, and this last act on her part is unseen by him. "Is anything the matter with Roger?" says Gower, slowly. "What should be the matter with him?" asks she, coldly. "Do you remember what we were reading yesterday? Do you remember even one particular line? It comes to me now. 'So loving jealous.' You recollect?" "No; and even if I did, what has it to do with Roger?" "Nothing--_perhaps_." There is a small fine smile around his lips that incenses her, she scarcely knows why. "Then what does your quotation mean?" "Nothing, too, no doubt. Shall we go on with our lesson?" "No, I am tired of it," she says, petulantly. "I like nothing, I think, for very long." She has grown somewhat restless, and her eyes are wistful. They are following Roger, who has thrown himself at Portia's feet. "Are your friendships, too, short-lived?" asks Gower, biting his lips. You can see that he is lounging on the grass, and at this moment, having raised his hand, it falls again, by chance upon her instep. Remorse and regret have been companions of her bosom for the past minute, now they quicken into extreme anger. Pushing back the garden chair on which she has been sitting, she stands up and confronts the stricken Gower with indignant eyes. "Don't do that again," she says, with trembling lips. Her whole attitude--voice and expression--are undeniably childish, yet she frightens Gower nearly out of his wits. "I beg your pardon," he stammers, eagerly, growing quite white. "I must _insist_ on your understanding I did not mean it. How could you think it? I--" At this instant Roger laughs. The laugh comes to Dulce as she stands before Gower grieved and angry and repentant, and her whole face changes. The grief and the repentance vanish, the very anger fades into weariness. "Yes, I believe you--I was foolish--it doesn't matter," she says, heavily; and then she sinks into her seat again, and taking a small volume of selected poetry from a rustic table at her elbow, throws it into his lap. "Read me something," she says, gently. "What shall I select?" asks Stephen, puzzled by the sudden change in her manner, but anxious to please her. "Anything. It hardly matters; they are all pretty," she says, disconnectedly, and so indifferently that he is fairly piqued; his reading being one of his strongest points; and taking up the book, he opens it at random, and begins to read in a low, sweet, rhyming voice that certainly carries its own charm.