"Which I could pay off--gratify, if I liked," he admitted.
"How?" she asked.
He did not reply, but glanced at her sideways and bit at the cigar
which he had stopped to light.
"Shall I tell you, if I were a man and I wanted revenge upon such a man
as Sir Stephen Orme, what I should do, father?" she asked, in a low
voice, and looking straight before her as if she were meditating.
"You can if you like. What would you do?" he replied, with a touch of
sarcastic amusement.
She looked round her and over her shoulder. The windows near them were
closed, Stafford with his cigarette was too far off to overhear them.
"If I were a man, rich and powerful as you are, and I owed another a
grudge, I would not rest night or day until I had got him into my
power. Whether I meant to exact my revenge or not, I would wait and
work, and scheme and plot until I had him at my mercy so that I could
say, 'See now you got the better of me once, you played me false once,
but it is my turn now.' He should sue for mercy, and I would grant
it--or refuse it--as it pleased me; but he should feel that he was in
my power; that my hand was finer than his, my strength greater!" He
shot a glance at her, and his great rugged face grew lined and stern.
"Where did you get those ideas? Why do you talk to me like this?" he
muttered, with surprise and some suspicion.
"I am not a child," she said, languidly. "And I have been living with
you for some time now. Sir Stephen Orme is a great man, is surrounded
by great and famous people, while you, with all your money, are"--she
shrugged her shoulders--"well, just nobody."
His face grew dark. She was playing on him as a musician plays on an
instrument with which he is completely familiar.
"What the devil do you mean?" he muttered.
"If I were a man, in your place, I would have the great Sir Stephen at
my feet, to make or to break as I pleased. I would never rest until I
could be able to say: 'You're a great man in the world's eyes, but I am
your master; you are my puppet, and you have to dance to my music,
whether the tune be a dead march or a jig.' That is what I should do if
I were a man; but I am only a girl, and it seems to me nowadays that
men have more of the woman in them than we have."