‘If the leddy will tell me herself,’ said Eelin, standing her ground. Cæsarism of this description was unknown on Loch Diarmid, and naturally the very sight of a rampant husband awoke the spirit of the female messenger. ‘Oh, mistress,’ she added, turning with sudden softening to Isabel, who sat dumb with crimson cheeks and downcast eyes, ‘dinna forsake us in our trouble. There is no one on a’ the Loch that can be of any help to us but you.’
‘Go ben to the kitchen and get a cup of tea after your long walk,’ said Isabel; ‘and I will come and speak to you, Helen. Go now and sit down and rest.’
Her voice was very low, she did not raise her eyes; but the woman understood and had compassion, and obeyed her without a word. A sudden harsh assumption of authority is a dangerous matter in any relationship, and perhaps most dangerous of all in that difficult transition from the love-dream to the ordinary conditions of life. Isabel’s proud and delicate spirit had never yet received so strange a shock. She sat dumb for the moment, quivering so painfully with the blow that she was unable to speak.
‘You may say what you like to her besides,’ said Stapylton; ‘but this you must just make up your mind to say, my love—that you shan’t go.’
There was a certain air of smiling insolence in the young man’s face. He was making his first experiment in the matter of sovereignty—beginning as he meant to end, he would have said.
‘Is this how it is to be?’ said Isabel, with quivering lips. ‘I—don’t understand. It never came into my mind before. Oh, Horace, is this how it is to be between us? It could never be any pleasure to me to do what you don’t like; but is it to be you who are to judge always, and never me?’
‘Didn’t you promise to obey me, you little rebel?’ he said, still with artificial playfulness; ‘and, of course, I mean to be obeyed. You may trust me not to give up my right.’
‘But not as a baby obeys,’ said Isabel, in a voice which was scarcely audible.
He got up with a laugh which jarred on all her excited nerves.
‘I don’t mind how you make it out,’ he said; ‘but I mean you to do what I like, and for this once you had better make up your mind. You shan’t go!’