seemed to suspend not only the energy of her spirit, but the very breath in her body.  A change had passed over her heart and the world around her and the persons and events which had so recently composed her universe.  She felt now that she cared for none of them, that, one and all, they had ceased to interest her; and that the things which filled their lives were all vacant and meaningless forms.  It was as if the vitality of existence had been drained away, leaving an empty shell.  Nothing was real, nothing was alive but the aching core of her own wounded heart.

“I don’t care.  I won’t let it spoil my life,” she resolved while she bit back a sob.  “Whatever happens, I am not going to let my life be ruined.”  She had repeated this so often that it had begun to drone in her mind like a line out of a hymn-book; and she was still repeating it when she swept by Stephen without so much as a word or a look.  A dangerous mood was upon her.  Nothing mattered, she felt, if she could only prove to him that she also had been trifling; that his kiss had meant as little to her as to him; that from the beginning to the end she had been as indifferent as he was.

Her step quickened into a run; and Gershom, striding, in order to keep up with her, looked at her with the jovial laugh that she hated.  “You’re in a powerful hurry to-day, ain’t you?” he remarked.

“I’m always in a hurry.  You have to hurry to get anything out of life.”  As she glanced up into his admiring eyes, she found herself wondering what Stephen had thought while he watched her?  She wished that it had been anybody but Gershom.  He seemed an unworthy instrument of revenge, though, she reflected, with a touch of her father’s sagacity, one couldn’t always choose the tools one would like best.  Most people would admit that he was good-looking in a common way, she supposed; and it was only of late that she had realized how essentially vulgar he was.

“I’m sorry you haven’t time to listen,” he said.  “I have news for you.”  Then, as she fell into a slower step, he added, with an abrupt change to a slightly hectoring tone:  “We passed that young Culpeper just now.  Did you see him?”

She shook her head disdainfully.  “I wasn’t looking at him.”

“He may have been on his way to the mansion.”  There was a taunting note in his voice, as if he were trying deliberately to work her into a temper.

“It doesn’t matter.”  She spoke flippantly.  “I don’t care whether he was or not.”

Gershom laughed.  “That sounds good to me even if I take it with a grain of salt.  I was beginning to be afraid that you liked him.”

She turned on him angrily.  “What business is that of yours?”

His amiability, as soon as he had struck fire, became imperturbable.  “Well, I’ve known you a long time, Patty, and I take an interest in you, you see.  Now, I don’t fancy this young Culpeper.  He is a conceited sort of ass like his father before him, the sort that thinks all clover is his fodder.”