Eleanor had not only an iron will but a remarkable capacity for cool and methodical thought even in the middle of an emergency. She set her mind to waiting things out. The only doubt in her mind was the possibility, a strong one as she saw it, that Lord Darlington would lose patience and resort to a forcible resolution. She began to conceive of what was hardly a plan, but at least a kind of strategy. If she convinced him too readily that she would never yield voluntarily, that might only precipitate him into raping her. But if she could give him little indications from time to time that she was not altogether unmoved by his attempts to persuade her, dangle before him some faint hope that his goal was not after all forever unobtainable, then she might find a gap in his defences. It might be
