There would be amusement, triumph, in
making him love her, in winning her wager with that cynical Mr. Howard,
who boasted of his friend's invulnerability; and when she had
conquered, and gratified her vanity--Ah, well, it would be easy to step
aside and bring the curtain down upon her triumph and Stafford's
discomfiture. She would wear that Mr. Howard's ring, and every time she
looked at it, it should remind her of her conquest.
Stafford rowed on in silence for some minutes. His beautiful companion
did not seem to want him to talk and certainly showed no desire to talk
herself; so he gave himself up to thinking of Ida--and wishing that it
was she who was sitting opposite him there, instead of this girl with
the face of a Grecian goddess, with the lustrous hair of an houri. At
last, feeling that he ought to say something, he remarked, as he gazed
at the marvellous view:
"Very beautiful, isn't it?"
She raised her eyes and let them wander from the glittering water to
the glorious hills.
"Yes, I suppose it is. I'm afraid I don't appreciate scenery as much as
other people do. Perhaps it is because one is always expected to fall
into raptures over it.
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