The blaze in her eyes kindled a more furious one in his; he stepped forward with a threatening motion.

Anger raged through me—­like a fierce rain that strikes flat a violent sea.  I laid my hand on her arm, which she snapped at like a wolf, but I spoke calmly: 

“You tender, true-hearted creature, full of womanly impulses, allow me to light my candle by yours!”

I picked it from the hearth, lighted it, and held it close to her face, laughing, though I never felt less merry.  But I had restrained him.

He took the candle away gently.

“Leave the room,” he said to her.

She beckoned me to go.

“No, you shall go.”

They made a simultaneous movement with their hands, he to insist, she to deprecate, and I again observed how exactly alike they were.

“Desmond,” I implored, “pray allow me to go.”

A deep flush suffused his face.  He bowed, threw wide the door, and followed me to the foot of the stairs.  I reached my hand for the candle, for he retained both.

“You, pardon first.”

“For what?”

“For much? oh—­for much.”

What story my face told, I could not have told him.  He kissed my hand and turned away.

At the top of the stairs I looked down.  He was there with upturned face, watching me.  Whether he went back to confer with his mother, I never knew; if he did, the expression which he wore then must have troubled her.  I went to bed, wondering over the mischief that a candle could do.  After I had extinguished it, its wick glowed in the dark like a one-eyed demon.

CHAPTER XXXI.

Another week passed.  Ben had received a letter from Veronica, informing him that letter-writing was a kind of composition she was not fond of.  He must come to her, and then there would be no need for writing.  Her letter exasperated him.  His tenacious mind, lying in wait to close upon hers, was irritated by her simple, candid behavior.  I could give him no consolation, nor did I care to.  It suited me that his feelings for her weakened his penetration in regard to me.

When he roused at the expression which he saw Desmond fix upon me the night that Major Millard was there, I expected a rehearsal from him of watchfulness and suspicion; but no symptom appeared.  I was glad, for I was in love with Desmond.  I had known it from the night of Miss Munster’s party.  The morning after I woke to know my soul had built itself a lordly pleasure-house; its dome and towers were firm and finished, glowing in the light that “never was on land or sea.”  How elate I grew in this atmosphere!  The face of Nemesis was veiled even.  No eye saw the pure, pale nimbus ringed above it.  I did not see him, except as an apparition, for suddenly he had become the most unobtrusive member of the family, silent and absent.  Immunity from espionage was the immutable family rule.