Isabel was already in the ante-chamber and Antonio did not overtake her until she was descending the steps. Dangling the keys he walked beside her without speech until they reached the shelter of the trees. Then he drew from his pocket the long steel key of the chapel and halted a moment while he placed it among the others.
"You see that I had brought it," he said. "This morning I forgot to give it you."
"Pray don't explain," she commanded curtly. "We've had explanations enough and to spare."
He relocked the old-fashioned key-ring and they resumed their march, Isabel going first along the narrow path. Antonio felt thankful for the short respite from talk. He knew that he was on his way to the sharpest fight of all. Although there was nothing of love in Isabel's manner towards him, he divined that she had invited him to the cascade in order to overthrow him by some final argument or appeal.
Could he be sure that he would once more succeed in resistance? He took stock of his weapons and forces. In sheer dialectic he knew that he was Isabel's match; for the very slowness of his English gave him a certain advantage. Nor was he greatly her inferior in rhetorical resource. What he feared was Isabel's unconscious challenging of his chivalry. He did not dread the wiles of deliberate coquetry, even if she had been capable of practicing them; and, most emphatically, he did not dread the seductiveness of her physical charms, because the stern battle against the flesh was a battle he had fought and won long years before. But he dreaded, with a dread nearly driving him into cowardice, the hateful task of bringing hot tears into her cool blue eyes and of breaking her soft voice into heart-broken sobbings.
He glanced at Isabel as she pressed onward a yard or so ahead. As always, she was the soul and body of grace. The poise of her golden head upon her swan-white neck, her proud shoulders, her exquisite waist, her fine hands plucking at the autumn leaves, her little feet which seemed hardly to touch the earth—all these charms were as adorable as ever. Yet there was something unusual in her port and gait. Perhaps she was less willowy, more rigid. She advanced with a masterful air as if to say: "To-day there shall be no nonsense. I lead: you follow. You are mine to do as I please with. Until this afternoon I have indulged you as I might indulge a favorite young horse. I've let you just smell the halter and then go galloping off to the other end of the field. I've let you lead me a breathless dance through the buttercups and clover. But you have bucked and jibbed and bolted and neighed and tossed up your head and shaken out your mane and tail long enough. This time I mean to put the halter on. So let there be no mistake about it."
Antonio observed all this and was thankful. So long as she chose to be peremptory, scornful, logical, he was safe. The encounter, though painful, would not be perilous. But let her once soften and he was lost. He felt that, even with the remains of yesterday's miraculous grace in his heart, he would be powerless against a tear or a sob. His two sleepless nights and the unwonted stress of romantic emotions were wearing him down, and he inwardly prayed that he might not be tempted beyond what he would bear.
When she reached the pool, Isabel did not cross the stepping-stones. Halting some distance from the brawling waterfall, and hardly waiting for Antonio to approach her, she began:
"We have had many long talks at this pool. To-day's talk will be short. Surely I have crawled to you enough on my hands and knees, and I will do it no more."
Antonio said nothing.