The strangest part of their relation was the failure of each to comprehend and fully to realize the full strength of the other’s purpose.  Dorothy could not bring herself to believe that her father, who had until within the last few weeks, been kind and indulgent to her, seriously intended to force her into marriage with a creature so despicable as Stanley.  In fact, she did not believe that her father could offer lasting resistance to her ardent desire in any matter.  Such an untoward happening had never befallen her.  Dorothy had learned to believe from agreeable experience that it was a crime in any one, bordering on treason, to thwart her ardent desires.  It is true she had in certain events, been compelled to coax and even to weep gently.  On a few extreme occasions she had been forced to do a little storming in order to have her own way; but that any presumptuous individuals should resist her will after the storming had been resorted to was an event of such recent happening in her life that she had not grown familiar with the thought of it.  Therefore, while she felt that her father might seriously annoy her with the Stanley project, and while she realized that she might be compelled to resort to the storming process in a degree thitherto uncalled for, she believed that the storm she would raise would blow her father entirely out of his absurd and utterly untenable position.  On the other hand, while Sir George anticipated trouble with Dorothy, he had never been able to believe that she would absolutely refuse to obey him.  In those olden times—­now nearly half a century past—­filial disobedience was rare.  The refusal of a child to obey a parent, and especially the refusal of a daughter to obey her father in the matter of marriage, was then looked upon as a crime and was frequently punished in a way which amounted to barbarous ferocity.  Sons, being of the privileged side of humanity, might occasionally disobey with impunity, but woe to the poor girl who dared set up a will of her own.  A man who could not compel obedience from his daughter was looked upon as a poor weakling, and contempt was his portion in the eyes of his fellow-men—­in the eyes of his fellow-brutes, I should like to say.

Growing out of such conditions was the firm belief on the part of Sir George that Dorothy would in the end obey him; but if by any hard chance she should be guilty of the high crime of disobedience—­Well!  Sir George intended to prevent the crime.  Perhaps mere stubborness and fear of the contempt in which he would be held by his friends in case he were defeated by his own daughter were no small parts of Sir George’s desire to carry through the enterprise in which he had embarked with the Stanleys.  Although there was no doubt in Sir George’s mind that he would eventually conquer in the conflict with Dorothy, he had a profound respect for the power of his antagonist to do temporary battle, and he did not care to enter into actual hostilities until hostilities should become actually necessary.