“In a way, yes, in another, no. My father was a prominent lawyer, but given to speculation in Wall Street.--He left little or nothing--I went into his office as soon as I left college--and although I was helped in the beginning I have made my own way--Ah! we are going to have a thunder-storm. Not in our whipped cream. That has been eaten by the gods. This cloud is full of energy and would interfere with the most immortal digestion. May I sit it out, or must I run?” “Stay,” said Bertie quickly, “I can’t sleep in that infernal racket. Have some Scotch whiskey? Do you take it neat, or with soda? Nell, ring the bell, that’s a good girl.” They refreshed themselves, and then we concluded to watch the storm till the rain came. The great cloud was a long time approaching and the thunder only a distant angry rumble. But the lightning? It never seemed to play on the surface, but leapt constantly from the deep caverns of the purple cloud, flashing into relief tortuous convolutions that looked heavy and flat when the fire played elsewhere. Sometimes it was only that volcanic flame, at other times the cloud seemed torn asunder, and down the rift ran the zig-zag thunder bolt. Now and again the forked lightning assumed strange shapes, like the fiery skeleton of a man’s hand or of a gigantic leaf. Sometimes it leaped from peak to peak of that moving mountain, then suddenly darted hissing down a gorge as if in search of prey. What nervous impatient terrible energy, and what a tyrannical perversion of beauty! I suddenly became aware that Mr. Nugent was watching me instead of the storm, and as I felt embarrassed I told him hurriedly what I had been thinking. Bertie had gone inside, as the lightning hurt his eyes. “In a way that thunder cloud reminds me of you,” I added, rather naughtily. “I don’t mean that you are beautiful, but you seem full of that same nervous energy and you suggest that you might direct it rather cruelly.” “I don’t think I should strike at random,” he replied, still with his eyes on my face. “And at present I am in far more danger of being hit first.” It seemed to me that I felt something vibrate. Perhaps it was only the electricity in the air. At all events, I replied as placidly as if my breath had not shortened. “One of the rules of prize-fighting is to strike first, and the weaker should always keep that in mind, don’t you think so?” “Will you kindly tell me whom you consider the weaker?” “Well--the woman--naturally.” “I should sleep much easier if I thought you did not know your power.” “Oh, sometimes my sex----” “I am not talking of your sex but yourself.” The lightning flashed just then and I saw more than his eyes. His whole face was eager and set. I could not help going a little further. “I used to fancy I had some power over men--at least a good many seemed to love me--but during the last two years I have got out of practice rather. Positively I have not had the tiniest flirtation.”