'My present mistress, sir, Miss Gwynne, is far too noble to let any one feel dependent, even those who are, like myself, wholly her servants.'
'You like Miss Gwynne?'
'I respect and love her. Perhaps you will now let me go to her.'
'Not yet. This independence. I could make you independent.'
'You! How? Impossible!'
'I love you, Gladys.'
'Me! This to me! Is it to insult me that you have detained me? Let me go, sir—I insist—and my mistress! You, Colonel Vaughan, who have been paying her such attentions as no man has a right to pay a lady unless he loves her, to dare to say this to me, and I a servant in her house. You, sharing her father's hospitality, to deceive her, and insult me. What have I done to encourage you to speak thus to me?'
Gladys stood still amidst the lights and shadows of the sun-crowned trees, and looked the colonel steadily in the face. That look, voice, manner, completed the conquest that had been maturing for weeks and months. The flushed cheek, the sparkling eyes, the tall, slight, erect figure, the voice, deportment—all were those of a lady in mind as well as person.
'Gladys, hear me calmly. I do not wish to insult you; I have never meant anything by my attentions to Miss Gwynne.'
'Then you are a—'