But for this, how unboundedly happy she would have been—how victorious, how triumphant! Who, looking at that most lovely face, with its calm, high-bred air, would have thought that the heart beneath was torn with thoughts of regret, despair, and even revenge that should lead to murder?
"My darling!" said the voice she loved best in her ear. "Doris, I shall be jealous of that music. I have spoken to you so often, and you have not heard me."
The eyes she raised to him had no shadow in them of the terrible thoughts that filled her mind.
"The music is so beautiful, Earle," she said, gently.
"I wonder," he said, abruptly, "who that is—a gentleman in the center box there? He has never once taken his eyes, or rather his glass, from your face."
A cold thrill passed over her, as though a shower of ice had fallen over her—a cold, terrible chill, a shudder that she could not repress. Her own quick, subtle instinct told her that it was he.
The moment she had dreaded had come—the sword had fallen at last.
He was looking at her; the next step he would be speaking to her.
Now for the Studleigh nerve, the Studleigh courage; now for the recklessness that defied fate, the boldness that was to defy fortune! A minute to collect, to control that terrible shudder, then she held up her flowers with a smile.
"You are very negligent to-night, Earle," she said; "you have not told me that you admire my bouquet."