Lord Cecil made a movement as if to strike him, but Percy Levant stood patient and unresisting.
“And yet more, my lord! It was he who set the trap which caught you and handed you, fettered and bound, to his accomplice.”
“Grace! It is—it must be—a lie!” broke from Cecil’s white lips.
A hollow laugh rang out behind him, and Lady Grace glided from her dressing-room. All eyes were fixed upon her as she stood, her exquisitely-clad form posed in an attitude of contemptuous defiance. A hectic flush burned on her cheeks, and she swept the group with a disdainful glance, as she fanned herself.
“Permit me to bear my testimony to this gentleman’s veracity,” she said. Spenser’s face, which had cleared suddenly at her appearance, fell again, and he shrank back and leaned against the wall, where he stood, nervously passing his hands over each other. “What he states is quite correct. I don’t know how he discovered it, but he seems to have made a tool of ‘dear’ Mr. Churchill, while ‘dear’ Mr. Churchill was under the pleasing delusion that he had got a submissive and willing dupe in him. It is probable that he knows the whole scheme. For it was a scheme, Cecil, and,” with a disdainful smile, “a very good one. Any but the most trustful of men would have seen through it. I compliment you, my dear Cecil—I suppose I must say Lord Cecil now!—upon your credulity.”
Cecil looked at her; then hung his head with shame—for her, seeing her utter shamelessness.
“I am utterly at a loss to conceive why my dear Mr. Churchill should have exerted himself on my behalf. Of course, I knew it was from no love he bore me—but I understand it all now!”
Cecil turned his back upon her, and, leaning his elbow on the mantel-shelf, covered his eyes with his hand.
“Mr. Spenser Churchill is really and truly a remarkably clever man; but, like some other clever men, he has chosen his tools badly. I can’t understand why he should have confided in a person of Mr. Levant’s character!” and she shot a contemptuous glance from under her half-closed lids at his pale face. “But having done so, he has, of course, been betrayed. ‘Put not your trust in—adventurers’ will for the future be an excellent motto for him!” She laughed, and the fan moved a little more quickly. “And now, having borne my testimony to the truth of Mr. Levant’s assertions, I have only to express my sympathy for ‘dear’ Mr. Churchill’s discomfiture, and your disappointment, my dear Cecil”—her face grew red, and her delicately-molded nostrils expanded with a malignant enjoyment—“your terrible disappointment! If you had only known all this a few hours earlier, why, you would have thrown off your new love, and been on with the old! But as it is, Mr. Levant, with all his newly-born penitence, has been clever enough to secure Miss Marlowe, otherwise the marquis’ daughter, for his wife, and you are tricked. It is a vulgar word, Lord Cecil, but it is the only suitable one.” She laughed again, and her fan moved rapidly. “Won’t you see—or do you?—this penitent and remorse-stricken gentleman’s game? You don’t! Why, you observe that he has married the lady he wanted, and by his betrayal of his accomplice saved his ten thousand pounds. Mr. Levant, I congratulate you upon your dexterity,” and she made him a sweeping curtsey. “Mr. Spenser Churchill is clever, I admit. I, too, always had an idea that I possessed a turn for intrigue; but you—oh, you are a genius, and the honors remain in your deserving hands.”
Percy Levant remained as silent, as impressive, as a statue; but Spenser Churchill, whose face had reflected every word Lady Grace had uttered, began to draw himself upright, and a low, chuckling laugh broke from him.