"I should like to feel that anything so important depended on me," she said. "I should like the sense of power. I am very fond of power."
"I once heard it said that you had a great deal of it," Tredennis said; "far more than most women."
She smiled again, a trifle less languidly.
"That is Laurence Arbuthnot," she observed. "I always recognize his remarks when I hear them. He did not mean a compliment exactly, either, though it sounds rather like one. He has a theory that I affect people strongly, and he chooses to call that power. But it is too trivial. It is only a matter of pleasing or displeasing, and I am obliged to exert myself. It does not enable me to bestow things, and be a potentate. I think that to be a potentate might console one for a great many things,—and for the lack of a great many. If you can't take, it must distract your attention to be able to give."
"I do not like to hear you speak as if the chief thing to be desired was the ability to distract one's self," Tredennis said.
She paused a second.
"Then," she said, "I will not speak so now. To-day I will do nothing you do not like." Then she added, "As it is your last day, I wish to retrieve myself."
"What have you to retrieve?" he asked.
"Myself," she answered, "as I said."
She spread the letter upon her lap, and gave her attention to it.