“Yes, I shall try,” he replied coldly. Their eyes met in undisguised enmity. “It would take a better man than you, Sylvester Lanyon,” she said. She rose and walked to the fireplace, with an air of great stateliness. Sylvester did not attempt to follow her, but lay back on the couch as if rapt in the music. But his evil mood was upon him. He had at once divined her desire to wound him in his tenderest spot. It was like a woman. He felt a great scorn for her. The music suddenly ceased. He uttered a conventional murmur. Roderick broke into ecstatic comment. “A divine genius! Interpreting the message of the wild winds of his mountain fastnesses,--the elemental throbbing in the hearts of his rugged forefathers. Ella, Moskovic must come to Walden. This supreme spirit must not be clogged by the banality of London concert rooms. He must breathe the freedom of the woods and streams.” “He has half consented already,” said Ella. “The silly fool!” muttered Sylvester, beneath his breath. “Ah, my comrade,” cried Roderick, turning suddenly round, “what message has science to deliver comparable to this?” “None that I'm aware of, thank Heaven!” replied Sylvester. Roderick broke into his gay laughter and crossed the room. “We must think of him kindly, as good Catholics do of those that sit in darkness and ignorance, eh, Ella?” With a lover's gesture he passed his arm lightly around Ella's waist, and drew her with ever so delicate a pressure a little nearer to him, and looked tenderly into her eyes. Sylvester started to his feet. A feeling unexpected, undreamed of, hateful, passed through him,--a wave of disgust, of sudden, fierce hatred of Roderick standing there as the undisputed possessor of Ella Defries. Had the man kissed her, he would have struck him. A phrase formulated in Heaven knows what cell of his brain leaped with ghastly suddenness into his mind. How dare that loathsome brute touch her? The revulsion was physical, almost unendurable. It lasted but a moment or two. Then Ella moved away and Lady Milmo came up with a light remark, and the world was as it was before,--a great grim vanity which he regarded with apathetic indifference.