"Which I could pay off--gratify, if I liked," he admitted.

"How?" she asked.

He did not reply, but glanced at her sideways and bit at the cigar

which he had stopped to light.

"Shall I tell you, if I were a man and I wanted revenge upon such a man

as Sir Stephen Orme, what I should do, father?" she asked, in a low

voice, and looking straight before her as if she were meditating.

"You can if you like. What would you do?" he replied, with a touch of

sarcastic amusement.

She looked round her and over her shoulder. The windows near them were

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closed, Stafford with his cigarette was too far off to overhear them.

"If I were a man, rich and powerful as you are, and I owed another a

grudge, I would not rest night or day until I had got him into my

power. Whether I meant to exact my revenge or not, I would wait and

work, and scheme and plot until I had him at my mercy so that I could

say, 'See now you got the better of me once, you played me false once,

but it is my turn now.' He should sue for mercy, and I would grant

it--or refuse it--as it pleased me; but he should feel that he was in

my power; that my hand was finer than his, my strength greater!" He

shot a glance at her, and his great rugged face grew lined and stern.

"Where did you get those ideas? Why do you talk to me like this?" he

muttered, with surprise and some suspicion.

"I am not a child," she said, languidly. "And I have been living with

you for some time now. Sir Stephen Orme is a great man, is surrounded

by great and famous people, while you, with all your money, are"--she

shrugged her shoulders--"well, just nobody."

His face grew dark. She was playing on him as a musician plays on an

instrument with which he is completely familiar.

"What the devil do you mean?" he muttered.

"If I were a man, in your place, I would have the great Sir Stephen at

my feet, to make or to break as I pleased. I would never rest until I

could be able to say: 'You're a great man in the world's eyes, but I am

your master; you are my puppet, and you have to dance to my music,

whether the tune be a dead march or a jig.' That is what I should do if

I were a man; but I am only a girl, and it seems to me nowadays that

men have more of the woman in them than we have."




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