"Mrs. Verschoyle!" announced the waiter, showing in that lady, and closed the door after him, leaving the two adversaries face to face with the feeling of battle in the air.
Mrs. Verschoyle, as she called herself, though she had no claim to the name, being divorced, was very like Carmela, only, not quite so handsome, while her expression was rather repellent, and her lowering eyebrows and firmly closed mouth warned Matteo Vassalla that she had come with hostile intentions. Matteo was the first to speak, and offered his visitor a chair.
"You will be seated, my cousin?" he asked, politely.
"When I choose," she said, harshly.
Vassalla shrugged his shoulders and produced a silver cigarette case.
"As you please," he said, carelessly opening it; "you will smoke?"
"No!"
"Drink?--there is excellent wine here."
"No!--I tell you," she retorted, viciously, "we can dispense with all these formalities, Marchese."
"Eh!" with a sudden lifting of the eyebrows, "why so precise, my cousin?"