The one, who above all others she most feared and disliked, knew
this. In smilingly accepting the compliments showered upon her
from all sides she felt that she must appear to him as if receiving
stolen goods, and she believed that in his heart he despised her
more thoroughly than ever.
To the degree that he caused her disquietude and secret humiliation,
her desire to retaliate increased, and she resolved, before the
day closed, to use her beauty as a weapon to inflict upon him the
severest wound possible. If it were within the power of her art
she would bring him to her feet and keep him there until she could,
in the most decided and public manner, spurn his abject homage.
She would have no scruple in doing this in any case, but, in this
instance, success would give her the keenest satisfaction.
His very desire for her acquaintance, as she understood it, was
humiliating, and, in a certain sense, demoralizing. Her other
suitors had imagined that she had good traits back of her beauty,
and hitherto she had been carelessly content to believe that she
could display such traits in abundance should the occasion require
them. Here was one, however, who, while despising the woman, was
apparently seeking her for the sake of her beauty merely; and her
woman's soul, warped and dwarfed as it was, resented an homage that
was seemingly sensuous and superficial, and would, of necessity,
be transient.
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