It was by a transition of topic that he saw he could nail her to her purpose.
"By-the-way," he said, when they had got on neutral ground again, and were speaking of Wayne, "I wish you would come and see what I think of doing for him. There are two rooms back of my library—too dark for my use—but that wouldn't matter to him, poor fellow—"
He saw that she was nerving herself not to flinch at this confrontation with the practical. He saw too that her courage and her self-command would have deceived any one but him. The very pluck with which she nodded her comprehension of his idea, and her sympathy with it, enraged him to a point at which, so it seemed to him, he could have struck her. Had she cried off from her bargain he could have borne it far more easily. That would at least have given him a sense of superiority, and helped him to be magnanimous; while this readiness to pay put him in the wrong, and drove him to exact the uttermost farthing of his rights. On a weak woman he might have taken pity; but this strong creature, who refused to sue to him by so much as the quiver of an eyelid, and rejected his concessions before he had time to put them forth, exasperated every nerve that had been wont to tingle to his sense of power. Since she had asked no quarter, why should he give it?—above all, when to give quarter was against his principles.
"And perhaps," he pursued, in an even voice, showing no sign of the tempest within, "that would be as good a time as any for you to look over the entire house. If there are any changes you would like to have made——"
"I don't think there will be."
"All the same, I should like you to see. A man's house, however well arranged, isn't always right for a woman's occupancy; and so——"
"Very well; I'll come."
"When?"
"I'll come to-morrow."
"About four?"