The strength of her love made her weak as water where that love was concerned.

Though her pride called upon her to surrender Stafford, she could not respond to it.
Swaying to and fro, with her eyes covered as if to hide her shame, she tried to tell herself that Stafford's was only a transient fancy for this girl, that it was mere flirtation, a vulgar _liaison_ that she would teach him to forget.
"He shall, he shall!" she cried behind her hands, as if the words were wrung from her in her anguish of wounded pride and rejected love.

"I will teach him! There is no art that woman ever used that I will not use--they say I am beautiful: if I am, my beauty shall minister to him as no woman's beauty has ever ministered before.

Cold to all the rest of the world, I will be to him a fire which shall warm his life and make it a heaven--It is only because he saw her first: if he had seen me--Oh, curse her, curse her! Last night, while he was talking to me, even while he was kissing me, he was thinking of her.

But she shall not have him! She has lost and I have won and I will keep him!" She dashed her hand across her eyes, though there were no tears in them, and stood upright, holding herself tensely as if she were battling for calm; then she replaced the poignant note in its envelope, and went back to the stables.