After awhile she heard Muriel’s skilful touch on the piano, and, when an hour had elapsed, the echo of voices died away, and soon a profound silence seemed to reign over the house.
The hot blood was coursing thick and fast in her veins, and evil purposes brooded darkly over her oppressed and throbbing heart. She was thoroughly cognizant of the intense admiration with which Mr. Granville regarded her, and to-night she had compared his handsome face with the older, graver, and less regular features of Dr. Grey, and wondered why the latter was so much more fascinating. Her beauty transcended Muriel’s, and it would prove an easy task to supplant her in the affections of her not very ardent lover. Life in Paris, spiced with the political intrigues incident to diplomatic circles, would divert her thoughts, and might possibly make the coming years endurable. Was the game worth the candle? No thought of Muriel’s misery entered for an instant into this entirely sordid calculation, or would have deterred her even momentarily, had it presented itself 208 in expostulation. The girl’s heart had suddenly grown callous, and her hand would have ruthlessly smitten down any object that dared to cross her path, or retard the accomplishment of her schemes. Weary at last of pacing the dim starlit avenue, and yet too wretched to think of sleeping, she re-entered the house, and cautiously locking the door, threw herself into a corner of the parlor sofa, which stood just beneath the portrait she so often studied.
If she had not at this juncture been completely absorbed in gazing upon it, she might have seen the original, who soon rose and came forward from the shadow of the curtains.
“Salome, I wish to make you my confidante,—to tell you something which I have not yet mentioned even to Janet. Can I trust you, little sister?”
Resting against the arm of the sofa, he looked intently into her face, reading its perturbed lines.
“I presume you are amusing yourself by tantalizing my curiosity, as your experiments appear to have thoroughly satisfied you that I am utterly unworthy of trust. I follow the flattering advice you were so kind as to give me some time since, and make no promises, which shatter like crystal under the hammer of the first temptation. You see, sir, you are teaching me to be cautious.”
“You are teaching yourself lessons in dissimulation and maliciousness, that you will heartily rue some day, but your repentance will come too tardily to mend the mischief.”
She tried to screen her countenance, but he was in no mood for trifling, and putting his palm under her chin, forced her to submit to his scrutiny.
“Salome, if I did not cherish a strong faith in the latent generosity of your soul, I would not come to you as I do now to offer confidence, and demand it in return.”
She guessed his meaning, and her eyes glowed with all the baleful light that he had hoped was extinguished forever.