She had no dislike for Mostyn really. In her heart she admired his clean, well-cut features, his stalwart, manly frame. More than once she had mentally compared him with other men of her acquaintance, especially with Jack Treves, and the comparison had been all in Mostyn's favour. Perhaps it was because she did not understand her own feelings, because she was too contradictory to yield to them, that she had always instinctively adopted an aggressive attitude when with Mostyn. In a sense it was against herself that she was fighting. How could she, who had been brought up almost from babyhood to the love of sport, have any esteem for such a greenhorn as this otherwise good-looking and good-tempered boy? It was that feeling that had impelled her to make fun of him, and which had caused her to resent bitterly what she had regarded as an attempt on his part to get the better of her. A peculiar pugnacity had been aroused within her; perhaps the wild and wayward little creature was moved, without knowing it, by the natural strife between sex and sex. She felt instinctively the desire of the man to subdue and win her, and all her senses were accordingly in revolt. "I suppose you think I'm a little minx, a sort of wild cat," she said, not looking at him but at the ground. "It's been my fault that we've quarrelled, and now you are reproaching me for it." "You're hard to understand, Ra--Miss Armitage," Mostyn said; "there's no doubt whatever about that, but I don't think you are a bit the minx you are inclined to make yourself out to be." He was staring at her, admiring her neat figure with its delicate curves, her nicely poised head, and her black curls that, in the sunlight, had a tint of glowing blue in them; he could not see her eyes, but he imagined that they must glint with the same blue. He wanted her to look up, but she still stared at the little well-shod foot with which she was still tapping the ground. "Yes I am, I'm bad-tempered; I say cruel things; I hurt people! But why shouldn't I?" she added defiantly, "when there's no one I care for and no one who cares for me? I've been brought up like that. I am hard by nature, and I don't see why I should pretend to be any other than I am." Mostyn laughed a little. "I know better," he said. "You've got a heart of gold, Miss Armitage, though out of sheer perversity you don't like people to know it. But I've found you out, you see, though we've only known each other such a little while and quarrelled every time we've met." "What do you mean?" she cried. She was looking up now, and her eyes had the blue glint in them, just as he had expected. They flashed upon him, but he could not tell if it were with anger or surprise. "You say that nobody loves you, and you love nobody. If so, why are you always doing little acts of kindness to people? Why do all the villagers adore you?"