What Inglesby succeeded in doing was to bring her terror to a head, and to fill her with a sick loathing of him.  Under the smooth protestations, the promises, the threats veiled with hateful and oily smiles, the man himself was revealed:  crude, brutal, dominant, ruthless, a male animal bull-necked and arrogant, with small eyes, wide nostrils, cruel moist lips, sensual fat white hands she hated.  And he was so sure of her!  Mary Virginia found herself smarting under that horrible sureness.

Perfectly at his ease, inclined to be familiar and jocose, he looked insolently about the lovely old room that had never before held such a suitor for a daughter of that house.  Watching her with the complacent eyes of an accepted lover, assuming odious airs of proprietorship such as made one wish to throttle him, he was in no hurry to go.  It seemed to her that black and withering years rolled over her head before he could bring himself to rise to take his departure.  Death could hardly be colder to a mortal than she had been to this man all the evening, and yet it had not disconcerted him in the least!

He stood for a moment regarding her with the eyes of possession.  “And to think that to-morrow night I shall have the right to openly claim you as my promised wife!” he exulted.  “You can’t realize what it means to a man to be able to say to the world that the most beautiful woman in it is his!”

Directly in front of her hung the portrait of the founder of the house in Carolina, the cavalier who had fled to the new world when Charles Stuart’s head fell in the old one.  It was a fine and proud face, the eyes frank and brave, the mouth firm and sweet.  The girl looked from it to George Inglesby’s, and found herself unable to speak.  But as she stood before him, tall and proud and pale, the loveliness, the appealing charm of her, went like a strong wine to the man’s head.  With a quick and fierce movement he seized her hand and covered it with hot and hateful kisses.

At the touch of his lips cold horror seized her.  She dragged her hand free and waved him back with a splendid indignation.  But Inglesby was out of hand; he had taken the bit between his teeth, and now he bolted.

“Do you think I’m made of stone?” he bellowed, and the mask slipped altogether.  There was no hypocrisy about Inglesby now; this was genuine.  “Well, I’m not!  I’m a man, a flesh-and-blood man, and I’m crazy for you—­and you’re mine!  You’re mine, and you might just as well face the music and get acquainted with me, first as last.  Understand?

“I’m not such a bad sort—­what’s the matter with me, anyhow?  Why ain’t I good enough for you or any other woman?  Suppose I’m not a young whippersnapper with his head full of nonsense and his pockets full of nothing, can the best popinjay of them all do for you what I can?  Can any of ’em offer you what I can offer?  Let him try to:  I’ll raise his bid!