In the cramped and sordid lives which had surrounded her there was much to repel and little to attract. The parental love of Pierre was strong and fierce, but it was animal, it was satiating, selfish, and undemonstrative. Hence Élise was almost wholly unconscious of its existence. As for Madame, hers was a love unselfish; but dominated and overshadowed, in terror of her husband, she stood in but little less awe of Élise. These two, the one selfish, with strength of mind sufficient to bend others to his purposes, the other unselfish, but with every spontaneous emotion repressed by stronger personalities, exerted an unconscious but corresponding influence upon their equally unconscious ward. These manifestations were animal, and in Élise they met with an animal response. She felt the domineering strength of Pierre, but without awe she defied it. She felt the unselfish and timorous love of Madame. She trampled it beneath her childish feet, or yielded to a storm of repentant emotion that overwhelmed and bewildered its timid recipient. She was surrounded and imbued with emotions, unguided, unanalysed, misunderstood, that rose supreme, or were blotted out as the strength of the individual was equal to or inferior to its opposition. They were animal emotions that one moment would lick and caress and fight to the death, the next in a moment of rage would smite to the earth. As Élise approached womanhood, these emotions were intensified, but were otherwise unmodified. There was another element which came as a natural temporal sequence. She had seen with unseeing eyes young girls given in marriage; she had no question but that a like fate was in store for her. So it happened that when Pierre, announcing to her her sixteenth birthday, had likewise broached the subject of marriage she opposed it not on rational grounds but simply on general principles. She was not at first conscious of any objections to Morrison. Being ignorant of marriage she had no grounds upon which to base a choice. To her Morrison was no better and no worse than any other man she had met. Morrison was perfectly right in his assumptions. Had not circumstances interfered, in the end he would have had his way. Morrison was also perfectly wrong. Élise was not Madame in any sense of the word. His reign would have been at least troubled, if not in the end usurped. The first circumstance which had already interfered to prevent the realisation of his desire was one which, very naturally, would be the last to appeal to him. This circumstance was Zephyr. From the earliest infancy of Élise, Zephyr had been, in a way, her constant guardian and companion. With enough strength of character to make him fearless, it was insufficient to arouse the ambition to carve out a distinctive position for himself. He absorbed and mastered whatever came in his way, but there his ambition ceased. He was respected and, to a certain extent, feared, even by those who were naturally possessed of stronger natures.