"I fancied you might prefer to share this lovely solitude with some more favored friend—for instance, Mr. Revington."
The hot flush deepened on the beautiful face, and she answered with an impulse of passionate willfulness:
"That would be natural, would it not? I suppose you have heard that I am to marry, Mr. Kenmore?"
His brown eyes flashed beneath their shady lashes.
"She dares to twit me with her preference for that puppy," he said, angrily to himself. "Does she indeed believe that I am blinded by her borrowed name, and that I am unaware of her real identity? Will she attempt to carry the farce through to the end?"
An impulse came over him to claim her then and there as his own; to take the slight young figure in his arms and press it to his beating heart; to kiss the beautiful, proud face and the defiant eyes, and to say, jealously: "You are my own wife, Irene, and whether you love me or not, no one shall take you from me."
Ah, if only he had obeyed the prompting of his heart, how much sooner happiness would have come home to them to crown their lives with bliss; but their mutual pride stood like a wall between. He shook off the tempting impulse to claim his own, and believed that he was but obeying the command of chivalry and honor in keeping stern silence.
"What, claim an unwilling, reluctant bride?" he thought to himself, sadly. "No, no! never! I must wait until of her own free will she owns her fealty to me. I must woo and win her before I claim her."
Perhaps the struggle in his heart betrayed itself on his face, for the resentment died out of her blue eyes and they were filled with a mute, pathetic longing.
"Ah, if he would only love me, if he would only claim me," she thought. "I would tell him how I hate and despise Julius Revington! He might help me to right my mother's wrongs!"