WEE DETECTIVE PLAYS A WINNING CARD.
From the time Fanny Clarmont has appeared like a ghost of the departed, Delrose determined to get rid of the bother of it all by going at once to Rose Cottage; the huntress to whom he had been engaged for the first dance he handed over to Tedril. He would write Kate from the cottage, but first, he would punish her for torturing him, by lingering with Trevalyon and giving her smiles to Lord Rivers, by a public little speech as to his leave-taking, and keep her preoccupied by his avowal as to who was to accompany him, (she knowing naught of their relationship) as to give her no taste for flirtation. (Simple Simon could not read her, she is a woman!)
"It is now nearly eleven o'clock, I shall keep her in suspense for half an hour or so, then she is mine. Gad! I have won a prize, a fierce, passionate, untamable, flesh-and-blood beauty, full of love or full of hate, strong in body, mind and appetite; and she does care for my devotion, we were born for each other; what a life we shall have, thank fate I never was foolish enough to throw myself away on that little, timid, shrinking, silly Fanny Clarmont," and he leaped and ran to Rose Cottage, some times with a loud laugh, startling the night birds, as he thought of the woman and her gold.
Kate had shivered as with a chill at Delrose's words, when Lord Rivers had said:
"Come and take a glass of something warm, you have been standing too long."
"You are kind," she said, recovering herself, "it gives one a chill to lose two men in one night; yes, thank you, a glass of champagne, t'will be a more pleasant sensation than the three brides, but let them beware; I shall have their husbands at my feet again; and now for the dance."
"I shall make you forget them."
"You may."
"A deserted room; a dim, religious light; a female form too tempting to resist," he said, lazily, and in her ear.
"Well," said Kate, drooping her eyelids, knowing what the result of this speech would be.