"Yes--perhaps now I could marry him--perhaps now I could!" she repeated. "So long as I wasn't your dependent--so long as we had a free life of our own--and knew exactly where we stood, with nothing to fear or to hope--the situation might be faced. We might hope, too--father and I--to bring _our_ ideas and _our_ principles to bear upon Arthur. I believe he would adopt them. He has never had any ideas of his own. You have made him take yours! But of course it seems inconceivable to you that we should set any store by _our_ principles. You think all I want is money. Well, I am like anybody else. I know the value of money. I like money and luxury, and pretty things. I have been sorely tempted to let Arthur marry me as he has once or twice proposed, at the nearest registry office, and present you next day with the _fait accompli_--to take or leave. I believe you would have surrendered to the _fait accompli_--yes, I believe you would! Arthur was convinced that, after sulking a little, you would forgive him. Well, but then--I looked forward--to the months--or years--in which I should be courting--flattering--propitiating you--giving up my own ideas, perhaps, to take yours--turning my back on my father--on my old friends--on my party--for _money_! Oh yes, I should be quite capable of it. At least, I dare say I should. And I just funked it! I had the grace--the conscience--to funk it. I apologize for the slang--I can't express it any other way. And now you come and say: 'Engage yourself to him--and I'll disinherit him _at once_. That makes the thing look clean and square!--that tempts the devil in one, or the angel--I don't know which. I like Arthur. I should get a great many social advantages by marrying him, whatever you may do or say; and a thousand a year to me looks a great deal more than it does to you. But then, you see, my father began life as a pit-boy--Yes, I think it might be done!" The speaker raised herself to her full height, and stood with her hands behind her, gazing at Lady Coryston. In the eyes of that poor lady the Chancellor's daughter had suddenly assumed the aspect of some glittering, avenging fate. At last Lady Coryston understood something of the power, the spell, there was in this girl for whom her son had deserted her; at last she perceived, despairingly perceived, her strange beauty. The long thin mouth, now breathing scorn, the short chin, and prominent cheekbones denied Enid Glenwilliam any conventional right indeed to that great word. But the loveliness of the eyes and hair, of the dark brows, sustaining the broad and delicate forehead, the pale rose and white of the skin, the setting of the head, her wonderful tallness and slenderness, these, instinct as the whole woman was, at the moment, with a passion of defiance, made of her a dazzling and formidable creature. Lady Coryston beheld her father in her; she seemed to feel the touch, the terror of Glenwilliam.