thrust upon him when least expected, and when the way was so narrow he
could not escape, but must meet it face to face.

Mary soon recovered her self-possession--women are better skilled in
this art than men--and continued:

"I am not intending to say one word about your treatment of me that
day over in the forest, although it was very bad, and you have acted
abominably ever since. Now is not that kind in me?" And she softly
laughed as she peeped up at the poor fellow from beneath those
sweeping lashes, with the premeditated purpose of tantalizing him, I
suppose. She was beginning to know her power over him, and it was
never greater than at this moment. Her beauty had its sweetest
quality, for the princess was sunk and the woman was dominant, with
flushed face and flashing eyes that caught a double luster from the
glowing love that made her heart beat so fast. Her gown, too, was the
best she could have worn to show her charms. She must have known
Brandon was there, and must have dressed especially to go to him. She
wore her favorite long flowing outer sleeve, without the close fitting
inner one. It was slit to the shoulder, and gave entrancing glimpses
of her arms with every movement, leaving them almost bare when she
lifted her hands, which was often, for she was as full of gestures as
a Frenchwoman. Her bodice was cut low, both back and front, showing
her large perfectly molded throat and neck, like an alabaster pillar
of beauty and strength, and disclosing her bosom just to its shadowy
incurving, white and billowy as drifted snow. Her hair was thrown back
in an attempt at a coil, though, like her own rebellious nature, it
could not brook restraint, and persistently escaped in a hundred
little curls that fringed her face and lay upon the soft white nape of
her neck like fluffy shreds of sun-lit floss on new cut ivory.