"Certainly. You deprived Bates of a comfortable place--he has only been in the situation forty years--and I went to get him another. I am happy to say that I succeeded." "And pray who is the chivalrous employer willing to receive my dismissed servant without a character?" "A very old friend of my father's--Mr. Vawdrey." "I thought as much," retorted the Captain. "And it is to Mr. Vawdrey you have been, late at night, unattended?" "It is your fault that I went unattended. You have taken upon yourself to dismiss my groom--the man who broke my first pony, the man my father gave me for an attendant and protector, just as he gave me my horse. You will take upon yourself to sell my horse next, I suppose?" "I shall take a great deal more upon myself, before you and I have done with each other, Miss Tempest," answered the Captain, pale with passion. Never had Vixen seen him so strongly moved. The purple veins stood out darkly upon his pale forehead, his eyes had a haggard look; he was like a man consumed inwardly by some evil passion that was stronger than himself, like a man possessed by devils. Vixen looked at him with wonder. They stood facing each other, with the lamplit table between them, the light shining on both their faces. "Why do you look at me with that provoking smile?" he asked. "Do you want to exasperate me? You must know that I hate you." "I do," answered Vixen; "but God only knows why you should do so." "Do you know no reason?" "No." "Can't you guess one?" "No; unless it is because my father's fortune will belong to me by-and-by, if I live to be five-and-twenty, and your position here will be lessened." "That is not the reason; no, I am not so base as that. That its not why I hate you, Violet. If you had been some dumpy, homely, country lass, with thick features and a clumsy figure, you and I might have got on decently enough. I would have made you obey me; but I would have been kind to you. But you are something very different. You are the girl I would have perilled my soul to win--the girl who rejected me with careless scorn. Have you forgotten that night in the Pavilion Garden at Brighton? I have not. I never look up at the stars without remembering it; and I can never forgive you while that memory lives in my mind. If you had been my wife, Violet, I would have been your slave. You forced me to make myself your stepfather; and I will be master instead of slave. I will make your life bitter to you if you thwart me. I will put a stop to your running after another woman's sweetheart. I will come between you and your lover, Roderick Vawdrey. Your secret meetings, your clandestine love-making, shall be stopped. Such conduct as you have been carrying on of late is a shame and disgrace to your sex." "How dare you say that?" cried Vixen, beside herself with anger.