She resented the kind of quasi-guardianship that this clever _backfisch_ assumed towards her, though she knew it meant that Nora had fallen in love with her.

But it was inconvenient to be so fallen in love with--if it was to mean interference with her private affairs.
"As if I couldn't protect myself!" The mere thought of Douglas Falloden was agitating enough, without the consciousness that a pair of hostile eyes, so close to her, were on the watch.
She sprang up, and went through her dressing, thinking all the time.
"What do I really feel about him?
I am going to ride with him on Monday--without telling anybody; I vowed I would never put myself in his power again.

And I am deliberately doing it.

I am in my guardian's house, and I am treating Uncle Ewen vilely." And why ?--why these lapses from good manners and good feeling?
Was she after all in love with him?
If he asked her to marry him again, as he had asked her to marry him before, would she now say yes, instead of no?
Not at all! She was further--she declared--from saying yes now, than she had been under his first vehement attack.

And yet she was quite determined to ride with him.