The Keepers of the People

351The longing to punish him was not easy to satisfy. She had taken vengeance on men before, on men who had hurt her vanity by showing a lower esteem of her than she had of herself. But Ralph Falcon was impregnable to her assaults. No sneer, no scorn: and she let no considerations of courtesy prevent her striking hard; seemed to touch him. She was reduced to trying to win him from his indifference, to setting herself to charm him, in the fancy that she would secure a position of vantage from which she might overwhelm him. It was a dangerous game, since to charm with any effect she must be herself charmed; and it befell that instead of fascinating she was fascinated. His simplicity, his contempt for everything desired by the men she had known, above all her abiding sense of his powerful personality, subjugated her intelligence; while his great strength, and his impassive, handsome face appealed to her senses as no man had appealed to them before. She felt that he knew his growing influence upon her, and her weakness; she could not throw it off, and she would not fly. At last it came about that she who had believed herself above passion, had laughed at the thought of loving that poor creature a man, who had arrogated to herself the privilege of receiving everything and giving nothing, would have given the world to surprise a tender light in his eyes when they rested on her face.

352Her efforts to charm him were vain; and she who had hitherto been very rarely thwarted in her life, found herself thwarted in the dearest wish of her heart. Now she fell into a profound discouragement, an utter distrust of herself, and now she was raging in a revolt against her obsession by his personality; but her abiding feeling was a bitter jealousy of Lady Lisdor. For if it were his fixed resolve to marry Miss Freshington, he permitted himself none the less the fullest enjoyment of Lady Lisdor’s society, never missing the morning ride, always with her and Althea, when they tired of the others. He was even admitted to the glade before the little temple, Lady Lisdor’s peculiar resort, when she was in the mood to read to Althea.