The woman evidently felt assured from that moment that she had made a conquest; but her varied experience and professional tact, as well as her native shrewdness, prevented her from expressing too great gayety over it, and she proceeded to inform Bristol how keen and shrewd the old ladies under Washington Hall were; how in confidence they had told her that they would compel him to marry one of them, and were going to draw cuts to determine which should carry off the prize; and when that was settled, if he did not marry the fortunate person willingly, their combined evidence would bring him down, or despoil him of a great portion of his wealth, which, she had no doubt, he had acquired by long years of honest toil.
Bristol expressed himself aghast at the depravity of women, and told Mrs. Winslow that it seemed to him that the nearer the grave they got the more terrible their greed and hideousness became.
Mrs. Winslow murmured that she was not so very, very old.
"Quite the contrary," said Bristol, gallantly, "and even when you become so, I am sure—very sure, that you will prove a marked exception."
An expression of pleasure flitted into her face, succeeded by one of evident pain—pleasure, probably, that she had made another dupe as she supposed; pain, that in one swift moment there had flashed into her mind some terrible picture of her cursed, lonely, homeless old age, when the whole world should scoff at her and thrust her from it, like the vile thing that she was and the hideous thing that she would surely become; both followed by the set features, where the cruel light came into her eyes and the swift shuttles of crimson and ashy paleness shot over her curled lips—the outward semblance of the inward tigress, that, though diverted for an instant by some little sunlight-flash of either tenderness or regret, never could be won from its irrevocably awful nature!
But it was all gone as soon as it had come, and she sat there, to all appearances a handsome woman, as modestly and carefully as possible encroaching upon the grounds of a first after-marriage flirtation, and in a few moments pleasantly said: "I have become so interested in you, Mr. Bristol, that I have found myself asking the question: Why is it that this gentleman is continually in my mind? until, do you know, I have such a curiosity about you that I shall be perfectly delighted to get better acquainted with you."
Bristol gracefully acknowledged the compliment by stating to her that he himself, since he had seen her, had had a strange feeling that he should know more about her, and the presentiment was still so strong upon him that he was now quite sure that he should.
"Ever since I saw you I have felt that we should become intimate," continued Mrs. Winslow radiantly.
"And I may myself confess that ever since I saw you, Mrs. Winslow, I really knew that I should be obliged to search you out and remain near you."
Mrs. Winslow blushed and coyishly asked: "Mr. Bristol, do you believe in affinities?"