“Myself!” said Perdita with a laugh.
“You can be my wife, nevertheless.”
“That I never will,” she said, looking him in the face.
He rose from his chair. “I will never give you up,” he repeated. “I will go now. You will let me come again?”
“As often as you like: I am not afraid of you,” was her answer.
Fillmore bowed and turned away. She had had the advantage so far. But he loved her thrice as much as he had done before, and he had never suffered defeat in anything he had undertaken. She neither loved him nor feared him?—But she could be his wife, nevertheless; and he would do anything to win her.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A CERTAIN change was no doubt observable in Marion. It might have been supposed that a life so secluded and reserved as hers had been thus far, would not have encountered the novel conditions of wealth and fashion without some awkwardness and bewilderment. But it was not so. She met the Goddess of Fortune half-way, and seemed in no respect at a loss how to greet her. In fact, the only sign she betrayed of being unaccustomed to abundant worldly resources was the activity and despatch she showed in taking advantage of them; as if life offered nothing but a variety of diversions, and it was incumbent upon one who appreciated life at its true value to canvass that variety in the shortest space possible. Whether she held, further, that the variety was to be inexhaustible, or the life short, did not appear. Philip was at first pleased with her alacrity; afterwards, his pleasure was less, and his surprise greater. He had promised himself some gratification in introducing his wife to the greater society, and initiating her into its splendors and amusements: but he found, not only that his leadership was unnecessary, but that he would have to exert himself to be the leader at all. Marion was fully equal to her position and opportunities. She faced the sun unshrinkingly, and, indeed, with a smile almost as of half-contemptuous familiarity. When she referred to the simplicity and difficulty of her previous experience, it was generally to expose the humorous aspect of the contrast with the present.
“What a beautiful thing wealth is!” she exclaimed one day to her husband.
“Glad you think so,” the latter replied, cautiously: for he seldom could be sure, nowadays, whether Marion’s observations would turn out serious or cynical.