“But that’s not reasonable, father; it’s not possible.  If you want me to obey you, I must know what I’m doing.  Because I don’t know what I’m doing, I haven’t—­”

“You haven’t obeyed me?” he asked, quickly.

“Not entirely.  I’ve meant to tell you when an occasion offered, so I might as well do it now.  I’ve written to Diane.”

“You’ve—!”

He strode up to her and caught her by the arm.  It was not strange that she should take the curious light in his face for that of anger; but a more experienced observer would have seen that two distinct emotions crowded on each other.

“I’ve written to her twice,” Dorothea repeated, defiantly, as he held her arm.  “She didn’t reply to me—­but I wrote.”

“What for?”

“To tell her that I loved her—­that no trouble should keep me from loving her—­no matter what it was.”

He released her arm, stepping back from her again, surveying her with an admiration he tried to conceal under a scowling brow.  The rigidity of her attitude, the lift of her head, the set of her lips, the directness of her glance, suggested not merely rebellion against his will, but the assertion of her own.  It occurred to him then that he could break her little body to pieces before he could force her to yield; and in his pride in this temperament, so like his own, he almost uttered the cry of “Brava!” that hung on his lips.  He might have done so if Dorothea had not found it a convenient moment at which to make all her confessions at once and have them off her mind.  It was best to do it, she thought, now that her courage was up.

“And, father,” she went on, “it may be a good opportunity to tell you something else.  I’ve decided to marry Mr. Wappinger.”

During the brief silence that followed this announcement he had time to throw the blame for it upon Diane, using the fact as one more argument against her.  Had she taken his suggestions at the beginning, and suppressed the Wappinger acquaintance, this distressing folly would have received a definite check:  As it was, the odium of putting a stop to it, which must now fall on him, was but an additional part of the penalty he had to pay for ever having known her.  So be it!  He would make good the uttermost farthing!  In doing it he had the same sort of frenzied satisfaction as in defacing Diane’s image in his heart.

“You shall not,” he said, at last.

“I don’t understand how you’re going to stop me.”

“I must ask you to be patient—­and see.  You can make a beginning to-day, by staying at home from the Thoroughgoods’.  That will be enough for the minute.”

Fearing to look any longer into her indignant eyes, he passed on toward the stables.  For some minutes she stood still where he left her, while the collie gazed up at her, with twitching tail and questioning regard, as though to ask the meaning of this futile hesitation; but when, at last, she turned slowly and re-entered the house, one would have said that the “dainty rogue in porcelain” had been transformed into an intensely modern little creature made of steel.