The fight was over almost before he knew it had begun. Pride played its own part. He would not yield, though twenty Garsykes came against him. But, deep under pride, lay some inner depth whose waters had not been stirred till now. Nita and her spells grew shadowy and weak. He was a free man again, and some new, undreamed-of world seemed to open out before him.
Nita stood at arm’s length now, wondering at the man’s stubbornness.
“So we’re both fools, it seems,” she said. “I lost Logie once for vanity—and now you’re losing it for pride.”
A twig snapped in the wood behind them, and Hardcastle turned sharply. He saw only a shaking of the pine-branches; but Nita had seen more.
“Afraid that one from Garsykes would club you from behind?” she mocked.
“Not afraid—but sure it would be from behind, if at all.”
“How you loathe us, Dick—and how we loathe you in turn. Listen. I’m as you see me—not ugly, they say—and there’s a mad-dog fury there in Garsykes. They want to burn your house to-morrow, and I will not let them.”
“Why?” snapped Hardcastle.
“I hope to be mistress there. Would I let them burn a house I shared?”
“You’ll never share it,” he said bluntly, stung by her careless trust in her own beauty and its power.