"You've been shut in there ten hours."

"What of it?" retorted she sharply. "Go away, and don't bother
me."

He had put her into such an ill humor that when she came out, two
hours later, her stormy brow, her gleaming hazel eyes showed she
was "looking for trouble." He was still breakfastless--he well
knew how to manipulate his weaknesses so that his purposes could
cow them, could even use them. He answered her lowering glance
with a flash of his blue-green eyes like lightning from the dark
head of a thunder-cloud. "Do you know it is nine o'clock?"
demanded he.

"So early? I try to get up late so that the days won't seem so
long."

He abandoned the field to her, and she thought him permanently
beaten. She had yet to learn the depths of his sagacity that never
gave battle until the time was auspicious.

Two mornings later he returned to the attack.

"I see your light burning every night until midnight," said he--at
breakfast with her, after the usual wait.

"I read myself to sleep," explained she.

"Do you think that's good for you?"