Finetta eyed her with a touch of scorn in her flashing eyes.
"You know it is him. Friend! I should think you were! Do you think I didn't see you start when you came in, and do you think I don't see how you're trembling and shaking? Bah! with all your acting you wouldn't be worth much on the stage. I tell you what the man said is true. Yorke Auchester has bought his wedding ring, and he'll use it unless you can prevent it!"
Lady Eleanor's face was like a mask, but her eyelids quivered.
"I've done my best—or worst," went on Finetta, and she laughed harshly. "I've seen the girl and tried to put a spoke in her wheel, and I thought I'd succeeded; but it seems I haven't——."
"You have seen her?" escaped Lady Eleanor's lips.
"Yes!" said Finetta. "Did you think it was me he was going to marry?" Her lips twitched. "It's a young girl down in the country, at a forsaken place called Portmaris."
"Portmaris!" Lady Eleanor breathed.
"Yes. Quite a young girl, a country girl, a mere nobody, and not a swell like you; though she's what you call a lady," she added.
Lady Eleanor sank into a chair and sat with tightly clasped hands. The shock of this sudden news had caused her to forget that the woman who was speaking to her was Finetta, the dancing girl at the Diadem, the girl with whom Yorke Auchester had been so intimately friendly.
Finetta looked down at her with a bitter smile. She had brought this haughty aristocrat to her knees, at any rate.