I sat smoking and thinking over this business when my servant, Borlas, announced that a lady wished to see me; and ushered in a tall woman closely veiled.
I was prepared now for anything that could happen.
I rose and bowed to her; but she stood without a word until Borlas had gone out.
"Don't pretend that you don't know me," she said, in a voice naturally sweet and full and musical, but now resonant with agitation and anger.
It was a very awkward position. Obviously I ought to know her, so I thought it best to speak as if I did.
"I make no attempt at pretence with you," I said, equivocally. "But aren't you going to sit down?"
"No attempt at pretence? What was your conduct last night if not pretence—maddening, infamous, insulting pretence?"
I knew her now. It was the handsome angry woman whose signals at the ball I had ignored—Paula Tueski. She had probably come to upbraid me for my coldness and neglect. "Hell holds no fury like a woman scorned," thought I; and this was a woman with a very generous capacity for rage. If she recognised me....
"Won't you take off that thick veil, which prevents my seeing your very angry eyes. You know I always admire you in a passion, Paula." I did not know how I ought to address her so I made the plunge with her Christian name.
"Why dared you insult me by not speaking to me at the ball last night? Why dared you break your word? You pledged me your honour"—this with quite glorious scorn—"that you would introduce your impudent chit of a sister to me at the ball. And instead, my God, that I am alive to say it!—you dared to sit with her laughing, and jibing and flouting at me. Pretending—you, you of all men on this earth—that you did not know me! Do you think I will endure that? Do you think——" Here rage choked her speech, and she ended in incoherency, half laugh, half sob, and all hysterical.