But she was at the mercy of a stubborn, rebellious pride.

She chose to ignore the warning that lay in Obosky's remark.

She felt herself beaten, and she was defiant.

It was too late to hark now to the mild, temperate voice of reason.
Something rankled deep down in her soul, something she was ashamed to acknowledge even to herself.

It was the disagreeable conviction that Percival ascribed her activities to nothing more stable than feminine perversity,--in fact, she had the uncomfortable feeling that he even went so far as to attribute them to spitefulness.