"Are not my words plain enough?"

"Yes, they are too plain--so plain as to make them involve a
mystery. What do you mean by this sudden change of purpose?"

"I don't wish to ride out," said Irene, with assumed calmness of
manner; "and that being so, may I not have my will in the case?"

"No--"

A red spot burned on Irene's cheeks and her eyes flashed.

"No," repeated her husband; "not after you have given up that will
to another."

"To you!" Irene started to her feet in instant passion. "And so I am
to be nobody, and you the lord and master. My will is to be nothing,
and yours the law of my life." Her lip curled in contemptuous anger.

"You misunderstand me," said Hartley Emerson, speaking as calmly as
was possible in this sudden emergency. "I did not refer specially to
myself, but to all of our party, to whom you had given up your will
in a promise to ride out with them, and to whom, therefore, you were
bound."

"An easy evasion," retorted the excited bride, who had lost her
mental equipoise.

"Irene," the young man spoke sternly, "are those the right words for
your husband? An easy evasion!"