CHAPTER XLIV.
"Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might; Smote the chord of self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight."
Lady Swansdown is startled into a remembrance of the present by the entrance of somebody. After all Dicky, the troublesome, was right—this is no spot in which to sleep or dream. Turning her head with an indolent impatience to see who has come to disturb her, she meets Lady Baltimore's clear eyes.
Some sharp pang of remorse, of fear, perhaps, compels her to spring to her feet, and gaze at her hostess with an expression that is almost defiant. Dicky's words had so far taken effect that she now dreads and hates to meet the woman who once had been her stanch friend.
Lady Baltimore, unable to ignore the look in her rival's eyes, still advances toward her with unfaltering step. Perhaps a touch of disdain, of contempt, is perceptible in her own gaze, because Lady Swansdown, paling, moves toward her. She seems to have lost all self-control—she is trembling violently. It is a crisis.
"What is it?" says Lady Swansdown, harshly. "Why do you look at me like that? Has it come to a close between us, Isabel? Oh! if so"—vehemently—"it is better so."
"I don't think I understand you," says Lady Baltimore, who has grown very white. Her tone is haughty; she has drawn back a little as if to escape from contact with the other.
"Ah! That is so like you," says Lady Swansdown with a rather fierce little laugh. "You pretend, pretend, pretend, from morning till night. You intrench yourself behind your pride, and——"
"You know what you are doing, Beatrice," says Lady Baltimore, ignoring this outburst completely, and speaking in a calm, level tone, yet with a face like marble.