Just a disdainful sweep of her eyes she gave him as she rose from the piano-stool and rearranged the lamps. “You mean so much that never comes to pass, Mr. Bannister. The road to the nether regions is paved with good intentions, we are given to understand. Not that yours can by any stretch of imagination be called ‘good intentions.’” “Contrariwise, then, perhaps the road to heaven may be paved with evil intentions. Since y’u travel the road with me, wherever it may lead, it were but gallant to hope so.” He took three sharp steps toward her and stood looking down in her face, her sweet slenderness so close to him that the perfume mounted to his brain. Surely no maiden had ever been more desirable than this one, who held him in such contemptuous estimation that only her steady eyes moved at his approach. These held to his and defied him, while she stood leaning motionless against the table with such strong and supple grace. She knew what he meant to do, hated him for it, and would not give him the satisfaction of flying an inch from him or struggling with him. “Your eyes are pools of splendor. That’s right. Make them flash fire. I love to see such spirit, since it offers a more enticing pleasure in breaking,” he told her, with an admiration half ironic but wholly genuine. “Pools of splendor, my beauty! Therefore I salute them.” At the touch of his lips upon her eyelids a shiver ran through her, but still she made no movement, was cold to him as marble. “You coward!” she said softly, with an infinite contempt. “Your lips,” he continued to catalogue, “are ripe as fresh flesh of Southern fruit. No cupid ever possessed so adorable a mouth. A worshiper of Eros I, as now I prove.” This time it was the mouth he kissed, the while her unconquered spirit looked out of the brave eyes, and fain would have murdered him. In turn he kissed her cold cheeks, the tip of one of her little ears, the small, clenched fist with which she longed to strike him. “Are you quite through?” “For the present, and now, having put the seal of my ownership on her more obvious charms, I’ll take my bride home.” “I would die first.” “Nay, you’ll die later, Madam Bannister, but not for many years, I hope,” he told her, with a theatrical bow. “Do you think me so weak a thing as your words imply?” “Rather so strong that the glory of overcoming y’u fills me with joy. Believe me, madam, though your master I am not less your slave,” he mocked. “You are neither my master nor my slave, but a thing I detest,” she said, in a low voice that carried extraordinary intensity. “And obey,” he added, suavely. “Come, madam, to horse, for our honeymoon.” “I tell you I shall not go.” “Then, in faith, we’ll re-enact a modern edition of ‘The Taming of the Shrew.’ Y’u’ll find me, sweet, as apt at the part as old _Petruchio_.” He paced complacently up the room and back, and quoted glibly: