“Jealous, I say—or you were not still so obsessed that you could fail to play the game I set you.”
“What game?”
“O! ‘What game?’ says she. Why, his game—or fatuity. Make him jealous; hoist him with his own petard, and see this common jade deposed.”
Affecting, while he spoke, the simplest conversational manner, he had an acute eye all the time for the two across the room. He observed the little attention the Earl was paying to the wiles besieging him, his disturbed glances his way, the morose suspicion of his expression; and he knew that the man was still too corroded with jealousy to play adequately the part assigned him. And in so far the decoy had failed, it seemed, to justify her uses. It was evident that, as Chesterfield had stated, she had begun to weary him—a perilous situation, which must be stopped from developing itself at whatever cost. But this mischief had reserves of fascination not yet brought into action. Kate’s own guitar—the famous instrument—lay on a table hard by. The sight of it brought one of these reserves most opportunely into his mind. If he dared—but he must dare.
Kate looked at her beguiler queerly. “I had forgotten,” she said. “Thank you, cousin. Is your advice very disinterested?”
“To that extreme,” said he, “that I offer myself, if you will, the fond instrument to this provocation. Purely to serve you, believe me. Why, watch him now, and judge if, for all his misbehaviour, he would relish that sort of retort on his infidelity.”
“I will not watch him,” she said, “or even look at him. You are very kind to me, cousin. I will think on what you say.”
He was so elated that he decided on the venture. Lifting the guitar, he ran his fingers over the strings.
“This, Mrs. Davis,” said he, advancing a few steps, “is thought, as no doubt you have been informed, the finest instrument of its kind in London. Do you play?”
The girl’s eyes sparkled. If she had a soul, it was to be evoked, small and indefinite, through music. Hamilton had calculated on that effect.