"Not only the better, but the happier," she said very bitterly. "Even a
dog would rather be beaten than kicked to one side."

Sir Roland lowered his paper again with startling suddenness.

"Is that your point of view?" he said. "Then I fear I have been
neglecting my duty most outrageously. However, it is an omission easily
remedied. Let me hear no more of this masquerade, Lady Brooke! You have
my orders, and if you transgress them you will be punished in a fashion
scarcely to your liking. Is that clearly understood?"

He looked straight up at her with cold, smiling eyes that yet seemed to
convey a steely warning.

She shivered very slightly as she encountered them. "You make a mockery
of everything," she said, her voice very low.

Sir Roland uttered a quiet laugh.

"I am nevertheless a man of my word, Naomi," he said. "If you wish to
test me, you have your opportunity."

He immersed himself finally in his paper as he ended, and she, with a
smile of proud contempt, turned and passed from the room.

She had married him out of pique, it was true, but life with him had
never seemed intolerable until he had shown her that he knew it.

She took her invitation with her, and in her own room sat down to read