Page:The Star in the Window.pdf/229

Rh There was, too, a tantalizing unexpectedness about her. She had the most human and understandable desire for pleasures and little harmless worldly delights, which he knew so well how to provide, forever at war with an odd strain, amounting almost to asceticism, that to his satisfaction usually got the worst of it when he was near at hand. But not always. The strength of Becky's resistance, at times, was amazing to Chadwick Booth. He could almost hear the beat of the wings of her impulses against the prison walls of her New England reserve, but he could not always break the walls. Therefore was added the lure of conquest.

She dressed, too, in surprisingly good taste; never appeared conspicuous, nor, on the other hand, dowdy. She might have been, to any of his acquaintances who chanced to see them together, a sister or cousin.