as when one lies full length in sunshine or is caressed by firelight.  She felt it pervade her body even to the palms of her hands.  Then her quick mind stirred, and she recalled the pressure of his arms, the light in his eyes, the quiver of his lips as they touched her hands.  His strength had dominated her and it still held her—­the firm note in the voice that trembled, the power in the hand that appealed, the almost savage vigour in the arms that he folded on his breast.  She had succumbed less to his gentleness than to the knowledge that it was she alone who evoked that gentleness out of a nature almost adamantine, wholly masculine.  His faults she knew to be the faults of one who had hewn his own road in life—­a rugged surface—­a strain of rigidity beneath—­at worst a tendency to dogmatise—­and knowing as she did her own control over them, they attracted rather than repelled her.

And yet in this pulsating recognition of his manhood there was mingled with an emotion half-maternal the memory of her own guardianship of his stunted childhood.  To a woman at once rashly spirited and profoundly feminine the pathos of his boyish struggle appealed no less forcibly than did the virility of his manhood.  She might have loved him less had her thought of him been untouched by pity.

She sat quietly in the twilight until Congo brought in the lamp and a prospect of supper.  Then she rose and went to join her father on the porch.

“Why did you tell Mrs. Webb I would be a ‘Daughter,’ papa?” she gaily demanded.

The general took his pipe from his mouth and stared up at her.

“It’s a good cause, Eugie,” he replied, “and she’s a remarkable woman.  Her executive ability is astounding—­absolutely astounding.”

“I joined,” said Eugenia.  “I had to, after you said that.  You know, I called on her the day I took Sally in.”

The general lowered his eyes and thoughtfully regarded the light that was going gray in his pipe.

“Did she happen to say anything about—­Dudley?” he inquired.

“Oh, yes.  She said he sent me a message in a letter.”

“Did she tell you what ’twas?”

“No.  I didn’t ask her.”

He put the stem of his pipe between his teeth and hung on it desperately for a moment; then he took it out again.

“He’s a fine young fellow,” he said at last.  “I don’t know a finer—­and, bless my soul!  I’d see you married to him to-morrow.”

But Eugenia laughed and beat his shoulder.

“You don’t want to see me married to anybody,” she said, “and you know it.”

At the end of the ensuing week Dudley came to Kingsborough, and upon the first evening of his visit he walked out to Battle Hall.  He was looking smooth and well groomed, and the mass of his thick dark hair waving over his white brow gave him an air of earnestness and ardour.  Eugenia wondered that she had never noticed before that he was like the portrait of an old-time orator, and that his hands were finely rounded.