And to wound Mary Grey's vanity was to incur Mary Grey's deadly hatred.
She was always a very dangerous woman, and under such an exasperation she could become a very desperate enemy.
She had felt so sure that no woman, however young and lovely, could ever become her rival, or even her successor, in any man's affections. So sure, also, that no man, however wise and strong, could ever resist her fascinations or escape from her thraldom.
And now that charming illusion was rudely dispelled! She saw herself even contemptuously abandoned by her subjects, who transferred their allegiance to a couple of "bread-and-butter school-girls," as she sneeringly designated Emma Cavendish and Laura Lytton.
She was consumed with jealousy—not the jealousy born of love, which is like the thorn of the rose, a defence of the rose—but the jealousy born of self-love, which is like the thorn of the thorn-apple, a deadly poison.
She sat on one of her trunks, with her elbows on her knees and her clutched fists supporting her chin. Her lips were drawn back from her clinched teeth and her black eyes gleamed like fire from the deathly whiteness of her face.
And so she sat and brooded and brooded over her mortification, and studied and studied how she might pull down ruin upon the heads of those hated young people who were loving each other and enjoying life at the cost of her humiliation.
And of course the foul fiend very soon entered into her counsels and assisted her.
"I have one devoted slave—one willing instrument left yet," she muttered to herself: "he would pay any price—yes, the price of his soul—for my love! He shall pay my price down! He shall be the means of drawing destruction upon all their heads! Yes, Miss Cavendish, marry Alden Lytton, if you will, and afterward look honest men and women in the face if you can! Yes, Stephen Lyle, become the husband of Laura Lytton, and then hold up your head in the pulpit—if you dare! Ah, if my plot succeed! Ah, if my plot succeed, how terribly will I be avenged! And it shall succeed!" she hissed through her grinding teeth, with a grim hatred distorting her white features and transforming her beautiful face for an instant into demoniac hideousness.
She started up and commenced traversing the floor, as a furious tigress her den.