"Saw her! I don't want to see her, to know what she's like! I can guess. A dowdy, simpering, doll-faced chit of a girl that caught his fancy! And she'll be his wife, while I——." She raised her clenched hands above her head, and laughed a wild, discordant laugh. "It makes me mad!"
She fell to pacing the room. Her hair had become unfastened, and fell in a black torrent over the creamy satin. Her lithe figure, erect and quivering, looked six feet high. A magnificent spectacle for a painter or sculptor, but not for the man or woman who had offended her.
"I'm flung aside as not fit for him to know, and she'll be his wife. I wish she were here now; I'd kill her! Oh, if I could only do something to separate them! If I could only come between them!"
She flung herself on the sofa, and hid her face on the cushion.
Polly went up to her.
"You're wearing yourself out, Fin," she said. "You'll suffer for this to-morrow. Better come to bed. Besides, what's the use of it? You can't bring him back, or stop his marrying the other girl."
Finetta raised her head, and looked at her as if she did not see her.
"Can't I?" she muttered between her closed teeth. "Can't I? I don't know! Such things have been done. Sometimes there's a way." She put her hand to her brow, and drew a labored sigh. "I can't think; my head's like lead and on fire, and my heart's aching. When did he say the wedding was to be?"
"Soon," said Polly. "What's the use——."
Finetta held up her hand to silence her.