"Well," said Hilda. "I wish you'd buy it."
"Would she feel more at home if he did?" he seductively chaffed her.
"Yes, she would." Hilda straightened her shoulders, and smiled with bravado.
"And suppose Mag won't sell?"
"Will you allow me to mention it to her?" Hilda's submissive tone implied that Edwin was a tyrant who ruled with a nod.
"I don't mind," he said negligently.
"Well, one of these days I just will."
Edwin departed, leaving the book behind. Hilda was flushed. She thought: "It is marvellous. I can do what I like with him. When I use a particular tone, and look at him in a particular way, I can do what I like with him."
She was ecstatically conscious of an incomprehensible power. What a rôle, that of the capricious, pouting queen, reclining luxuriously on her lounge, and subduing a tyrant to a slave! It surpassed that of the world-renowned pianist!...
III