"I believe she considers me harsh and cruel," Eades went on, smiling, but looking intently at Elizabeth. "Oh, Mr. Eades is mistaken," she said; "I’m sure I agree with all the nice things that are said of him." She detested the weakness of her quick retreat; and she detested more the immediate conviction that it came from a certain fear of Eades. She was beginning to feel a kind of mastery in his mere presence, so that when she was near him she felt powerless to oppose him. The arguments she always had ready for others, or for him--when he was gone--seemed invariably to fail her when he was near; she had even gone to the length of preparing them in advance for him, but when he came, when she saw him, she could not even state them, and when she tried, they seemed so weak and puerile and ineffectual as to deserve nothing more serious than the tolerant smile with which he received and disposed of them. And now, as this weakness came over her, she felt a fear, not for any of her principles, which, after all, were but half-formed and superficial, but a fear for herself, for her own being, and she was suddenly grateful for Miss Masters’s presence. Still, Eades and Miss Masters seemed to be waiting, and she must say something. "It’s only this," she said. "Not long ago I saw officers taking some prisoners to the penitentiary. I can never forget the faces of those men." Over her sensitive countenance there swept the memory of a pain, and she had the effect of sinking in her straight chair. But Eades was gazing steadily at her, a smile on his strong face, and Miss Masters was saying: "But, dear me! The penitentiary is the place for such people, isn’t it, Mr. Eades?" "I think so," said Eades. His eyes were still fixed on Elizabeth, and she looked away, groping in her mind for some other subject. Just then the hall bell rang. Elizabeth was glad, for it was Marriott, and as she took his hand and said simply, "Ah, Gordon," the light faded from Eades’s face. Marriott’s entrance dissolved the situation of a moment before. He brought into the drawing-room, dimming now in the fading light, a new atmosphere, something of the air of the spring. Miss Masters greeted him with a manner divided between a certain distance, because Marriott had not been born in that city, and a certain necessary approach to his mere deserts as a man. Marriott did not notice this, but dropped on to the divan. Elizabeth had taken a more comfortable chair. Marriott, plainly, was not in the formal Sunday mood, just as he was not in the formal Sunday dress. He had taken in Eades’s frock-coat and white waistcoat at a glance, and then looked down at his own dusty boots. "I’ve been hard at work to-day, Elizabeth," he said, turning to her with a smile. "Working! You must remember the Sabbath day to keep it--"