CHAPTER XX.
"There are that raise up strife and contention." -- _Hab._ 1:3.
"Only by pride cometh contention." -- _Prov._ 13:10.
While Zoe was at Max's door, something took Edward to their rooms.

He was there but a moment--just long enough to pick up the article he wanted--and hurrying down the hall again, caught the sound of her voice as he reached the head of the stairway.
For an instant he stood still, debating with himself whether to interfere or not; then deciding in the negative, passed on down the stairs more angry with her than ever.
She was defying riot only his authority, but also that of his grandfather and mother, and interfering with their management of the children committed to their care by their own father.

Truly, he feared he had made a sad mistake in putting such a child into a woman's position, where she felt herself entitled to rights, for whose proper exercise she had not yet sufficient judgment or self-control.
As he entered the drawing-room, Miss Deane, who was seated at a table looking over a portfolio of drawings and engravings, called him to her side.
"You have visited these places, Mr.Travilla," she said, "and I want the benefit of your explanations, and your opinion whether the pictures are true to nature.

They are European views, I see." Of course he could not, without great rudeness, refuse to take a seat by her side and give her the information she requested.
So it happened that when Zoe came in presently after, her anger was intensely aroused by seeing her husband and Miss Deane seated at a distant table, apart from the rest of the occupants of the room, laughing and talking with their heads very close together over an engraving.
Edward lifted his just in time to catch her look of mingled amazement, scorn, and indignation.

He flushed hotly, and remembering what he had just overheard up-stairs, and what had passed between them in the apple-orchard, gave her an angry glance in return.
She drew her slight, girlish figure up to its full height, and turning away, crossed the room toward a sofa where Mrs.Dinsmore and a bachelor gentleman of the neighborhood sat conversing together.
A sudden impulse seized her as Mr.Larned rose and took her hand in greeting, Mrs.Dinsmore being called from the room at the same moment by a servant, who said that some one was waiting in the hall to speak to her.
"I'll pay Edward back in his own coin," Zoe said to herself, and Mr.
Larned was surprised at the great cordiality and winning sweetness of her manner as she took the vacated seat by his side, then at the spirit and vivacity with which she rattled away to him, now on this theme, now on that.
Excitement lent an unwonted glow to her cheek and brilliancy and sparkle to her always beautiful eyes.
Edward, watching her furtively, with darkening brow, thought he had never seen her so pretty and fascinating, and never had her low soft laugh, as now and again it reached his ear, sounded so silvery sweet and musical, yet it jarred on his nerves, and he would fain have stopped it.
He hoped momentarily that Mr.Larned would go, but he sat on and on the whole evening, Zoe entertaining him all the while.
Other members of the family came in, but though he rose to greet them, he immediately resumed his seat, and she kept hers, even in spite of the frowning looks her husband gave her from time to time, but which she feigned not to see.
At length, his mother perceiving with pain what was going on, managed to release him from Miss Deane, and he at once took a seat on his wife's other side, and joined in the talk.
Zoe had but little to say after that, and Mr.Larned presently took his departure.
That was a signal for the good-nights, and all scattered to their rooms.
Zoe's heart quaked as the door of her boudoir closed upon her, shutting her in alone with her irate husband.
She knew that he was angry, more angry with her than he had ever been before, and though in her thoughts she tried to put all the blame on him, conscience told her that she was by no means blameless.
He locked the door, then turned toward her.