“It is needless,” she said. “You mean that he has left me, because I am poor, for Lady Earlsley, who can make him rich.”
Stephen turned away and sighed heavily.
Una looked at him for a moment, then sat down at the tea-table.
“You will have some tea?” she said calmly.
Stephen started and looked at her. She had taken up the cream ewer with an unfaltering hand. Great Heaven! could it be possible that she did not feel it—that she did not really love Jack after all! A wild feeling of exultation rose within his heart.
“Thank Heaven!” he murmured, “you can meet such treachery as it deserves—with scorn and contempt.”
She looked up at him with a strange smile on her cold, white face, and held out a tea-cup. But as he came near her, the cup dropped from her hand with a crash, and she fell back like one stricken unto death.
****
That same evening, Lady Bell stood in the drawing-room of Earl’s Court. She was richly dressed, more richly than was usual with her; upon her white neck and arms sparkled the diamond set which she wore only on the most special occasions. The room was full. Four or five of the country families had been dining with her, and the buzz of conversation and sound of music rose and fell together confusedly.
Surrounded, as usual, by a little circle of courtiers, she reigned, by the right of her beauty, her birth, and her wealth, a queen of society.