"And you usually—get what you want," she retorted with a spark of rebellion.
"Yes," he admitted. "Only hitherto I haven't wanted very desirable things."
She laughed, but her curiosity got the better of her.
"Hitherto," she said, "you have just taken what you desired."
From the smouldering fires in his eyes darted an arrowpoint of flame.
"What kind of a man are you?" she asked, throwing the impersonal to the winds. "Somebody called you a Viking once."
"Who?" he demanded.
"It doesn't matter. I'm beginning to think the name singularly appropriate. It wouldn't be the first time one landed in Newport, according to legend," she added.
"I haven't read the poem since childhood," said Chiltern, looking at her fixedly, "but he became—domesticated, if I remember rightly."
"Yes," she admitted, "the impossible happened to him, as it usually does in books. And then, circumstances helped. There were no other women."