"Who?"
"Siersdorf."
"If I had to choose, I'd prefer—even you."
"Siersdorf is adaptable and appreciative. He's good to look at, has a good all-round mind, is extraordinary in his specialty. You couldn't do better."
"I don't want him," she cried impatiently. "I prefer to suit myself in marrying." She stood before him, her hands behind her, the pretty face tilted daringly upward. "Are you trying to make me dislike you?"
He looked down at her; there was not a hint in his expression that her dare was a temptation. "I must be going," said he.
Tears gathered in her eyes, made them brilliant, took away much of their natural hardness. "Won't you be friends?" she appealed.
He continued to look straight into her eyes until her expression told him she knew he was not deceived by her maneuverings and strategies. Then he said, "No," with terse directness of manner as well as of speech. "No, because you do not want friends. You want victims."
In sudden anger she flung off her mask. "I am a good hater," she warned. "You don't want me to turn against you, do you?"
His face became sad and somewhat bitter. There had been a time when such a menace from a source so near his career would have alarmed him, would have set him to debating conciliation. But his self-confidence had developed beyond that stage, had reached the point where a man feels that, if any force from without can injure him, the sooner he finds it out, the more quickly he will be able to make a career founded upon the only unshakable ground, his own single strength.