- nairly that Olivia was irresistibly impelled to make
it stronger. The love scene, which really began very prettily, absolutely degenerated into a quarrel. Pembroke openly accused Olivia of being mercenary. Olivia retaliated by an exasperating remark, implying that perhaps Madame Koller's fortune was not without its charm for him—to which Pembroke, being entirely innocent, responded with a rude violence that made Olivia more furiously angry than she ever expected to be in her life. Pembroke seeing this in her pale face and blazing eyes, stalked down the garden path, wroth with her and wroth with the whole world.
He, walking fast back through the woods, was filled with rage and remorse—chiefly with rage. She was a cold-blooded creature—how she did weigh that money question—but—ah, she had a spirit of her own—such a spirit as a man might well feel proud to conquer—and the touch of her warm, soft hand!
Olivia felt that gap, that chasm in existence, when a shadowy array of vague hopes and fears suddenly falls to the ground. Pembroke had been certainly too confident and much too overbearing—but—it was over. When this thought struck her, she was walking slowly down the broad box-bordered walk to the gate. The young April moon was just appearing in the evening sky. She stopped suddenly and stood still. The force of her own words to him smote her. He would certainly never come back. She turned and flew swiftly back to the
