Tom caught Elsie up in his arms and ran twice with her across the floor, paying no more attention to her cries and struggles than if she had been a baby.
"That's for punishment!" said Tom.
"Let me down! Please let me down!" pleaded Elsie. "I know you'll drop me! Oh, you hurt me, Tom!"
Tom placed her on the sofa and seated himself by her side. But she started away and ran upstairs, sending back a laugh of defiance.
CHAPTER XL.
TWO FACES IN THE GLASS.
When Elsie entered her boudoir, flushed with laughter and breathless with running, she threw herself on the azure couch, and gathering her ringlets in a mass between her hand and the warm cheek under which it was thrust, fell into a deeper train of thought than was usual to her.
"It's done, and I don't care. He loves me, and I must be loved. He's rich, generous, devoted, worships me and always will, that's one comfort. There'll be no one to halve his devotion or his money with me, no one to look glum if I want to be a little bit extravagant. Grant never refused me anything in his life, but I'm always afraid to ask half that I want. But with Tom everything will be my own. He won't ask a question. Such laces as I will have! As for cashmere shawls and silks, he shall get them for me by the dozens. Elizabeth won't say that such things are out of place then. I shall be a married woman, free of her and this old house too, free of everything, but—but——"
Elsie started up, breaking this selfish train of thought with the action.