In all the years of passage from girlhood to womanhood, she had lived alone with that dipsomaniac, seeing only such society as frequented her aunt's lawn, and little of that. Books, and such training in life as they give, she had known; but she had never known a flirtation, a follower or a lover. On the day when Bertram Chester went with her to tame the bull, she was as one who steps from the door of a convent. CHAPTER IV As she left the Tiffany gate and emerged into the main road between Santa Clara and Los Gatos, Eleanor raised her serviceable khaki-brown parasol. She was walking directly toward the setting sun, which poured into her eyes; yet she dropped the sunshade behind her head as though to shield herself against an approach from the rear. No one followed; she had walked to the next fence corner before she assured herself of that, dared to shift that feminine buckler against the eye of the sun, to slacken her pace, and to muse on an afternoon whose events, so quiet, so undramatic, and yet so profoundly significant, buzzed still in her head. As she thought on them, other things came into her mind as momentous and worthy of attention before the jump of the great event--that moment alone with Bertram Chester, that panic of unaccountable fear. Slow to anger as much by a native and hidden sweetness as by that surface control which puzzled her demonstrative Aunt Matilda, she surprised her cheeks burning and her blood beating in her throat. With this physical agitation came an army of disagreeable and disturbing thoughts. At first they were only recollections of irritations past; the tiny maladjustments of her life; things by which she owed vengeance of slight wrongs. They came together at length, into one great, sore grievance--the forwardness, the utter, mortifying impudence, of Mr. Chester. It was long before she admitted this as a cause of irritation; once admitted, it overshadowed all her other complaints against life. Timidly, she approached stage by stage that scene on the lawn, that unaccountable moment in the kitchen. Again she saw his great shoulders heave with unnecessary strength at the ridiculous cracker box; again she caught the sense of confinement with a machine of crushing strength and power. It seemed to her that her retina still danced with the impression of him as he turned to face her, as he flashed upon her like a drawn weapon. She found herself looking down at the dusty road; suddenly she grew so sick and faint that the breath deserted her body and she had to lean against the gate post for support. The touch of it against her body revived her with a start, and brought to her mind the extent and folly of her own imaginings. She pulled herself together and dropped her parasol to shield her face from Maria, who was hurrying over from the kitchen garden. * * * * *