The Keepers of the People

350The methods she employed to impress her personality upon him were not always delicate — delicacy was not one of her attributes. The clever, spoiled child of fond parents, she had gone into the world to find that she had power over men. She had little self-restraint, because she had never known discipline; and his silent refusal to yield the homage and admiration she had come to consider her due, threw her off her balance. She assured herself that he was stupid, but could not believe her assurance; for now and again when they talked, or rather when she talked to him of herself, his few words inspired in her a feeling that he knew more of her nature than she would have had known, almost more than she had ever admitted to herself. She had revolted at the thought; then one day she was on the terrace with him, and having fallen silent with averted eyes, she had turned them to find him considering her figure with a curious gravity. She was not easily put out of countenance, but she found herself flushing in a tingle of ashamed confusion; and acting on a strong impulse, not very clear to her understanding, she sprang to her feet, and moved away from him, trying in an utter uneasiness to analyse the look. She said to herself that it was the look of a Turk buying a Circassian.... No, it was not quite that — not the disrobing gaze of a profligate.... It was the look of a man buying a horse.... No, it was not quite that.... It was the look of a horse-breeder considering a brood-mare. Yes, it was exactly that — exactly. The flush grew darker on her face in an extreme anger. A great longing to punish him filled her; and later again a fresh anger with herself, when she found how deeply the look had impressed her, how it had shaken her confidence in herself.