"I did as my father bade me. I sent the smiling, dapper, disagreeably attentive man to the laboratory, and when this was done, went to the window and threw it up with some vague idea of cleansing the room from an influence which stifled me.
"You may imagine then with what a sense of apprehension I observed that my father fairly glowed with delight when he came to the supper-table. From being the half-sullen, half-oblivious companion who had lately chilled our board and made it the scene of anything but cheer or comfort, he had brightened at once into a garrulous old man, ready with jests and full of condescending speeches in regard to his great experiments. Emma, to whom I had said nothing, looked her innocent pleasure at this, and both of us started in amazement when he suddenly turned towards me, and surveyed me with something like interest and pleasurable curiosity.
"'Why do you look at me like that?' I could not help saying. 'I should think you had never seen me before, father.'
"'Perhaps I never have,' he laughed. Then quite seriously: 'I was looking to see if you were as handsome as Mr. Harding said you were. He told me he had never seen so beautiful a woman in his life.'
"I was shocked; more than that, I was terrified; I half-rose from the table, and forgetting everything else which made my life a burden to me, I had some wild idea of rushing from the house, from the town, anywhere to escape the purpose I perceived forming itself in my father's mind.
"'Father,' I cried, with a trembling in my tones that was not common to them, even in the moments of my greatest displeasure; 'I hate that man, and abominate the very idea of his presuming to admire me. Do not ever mention him to me again. It makes my very soul turn sick.'
"It was an unwise speech; it was the unwisest speech I could have made. I felt this to be so the moment I had spoken, and stole a look of secret dismay at Emma, who sat quite still and helpless, gazing, in silent consternation, from my father to myself.
"'You will hate no one who can help me perfect my experiments,' he retorted. 'If I command you to do so, you must even love him, though we have not got so far as that yet.'
"'I will never love anybody again,' I answered bitterly. 'And I would not love this man if your discoveries and my own life even hung upon it.'
"'You would not?' He was livid now. 'Well, we shall see. He is coming here to dinner to-morrow, and if you dare to show him anything but the respect due to an honored guest you will live to rue it as you have never rued anything yet.'