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198 he humbly asked to serve, while Bill Steele made fun of her, set his big bulk stubbornly athwart her horizon and dictated. Was there some sense, after all, in that idiotic theory about woman's nature craving something of the plain man-brute in her mate? For though Beatrice persisted both in "thoroughly detesting and despising" Bill Steele, yet he inspired no such shudder as did Embry.

"I'd like to see Joe Embry grind him down into the dust!" she cried passionately. … And with the cry came vivid remembrance of the scene before her eyes when Steele and Embry had stood face to face menacingly, and from the troubled depths of her soul there had risen the hot desire to see the man she hated beat down the man she was so near marrying.

If Steele had come into her life in another manner, if he had been respectful in his attitude like others, quietly courteous to her. … But she couldn't even imagine it; he could not be Steele and be other in his attitude than he was. And, looking under the brusque impertinence of him, was there really disrespect?

It struck her that never before had it been so difficult a matter to keep her mind clearly in its logical groove, to move methodically from point to point until she achieved perfect clarity of vision. Now she found that she was remembering that day with Steele at the Goblet, recalling every detail of their meeting, going repeatedly over trifles over which she had gone repeatedly before. The making of the biscuits. … They were good biscuits, too, despite his banter, and he had enjoyed their crisp brown crusts as well as she! … the