"Oh!" Lady Wyke laughed shrilly. "On what condition?"
"On condition that you save his life!"
"I accept!" said Lady Wyke. "His life is safe when he becomes my husband."
[CHAPTER XVII.]
After the excitement of the evening and her swift walk in the keen air at so late an hour, Claudia felt faint. Nor did the languid atmosphere of the tropical drawing-room tend to restore her. The heat of the large fire, the brilliance of the many lights, the multiplicity of colours, and the odour of flowers mixed with the scent of the burning pastilles, all made her sense reel and her eye grow dim. With a violent effort she cleared her head of vapours, and became as composed as formerly she had been agitated. Lady Wyke was pleased.
"You are worth fighting, Miss Lemby." she said, approvingly.
"Thank you for the compliment," retorted Claudia, sitting bolt upright with a stern white face and steady eyes.
"Oh, it's no compliment," trilled Lady Wyke, like a bird, "it is the truth. If you were a namby-pamby of the weeping kind I should despise you. As it is, I respect you immensely. Few girls of your age would act so sensibly."
"I am acting sensibly, as you call it, because I see no other way in which to act. But although I have yielded for the moment, Lady Wyke, don't think that I have given up all hope of regaining Edwin. That Edwin will be my husband is a foregone conclusion. Aren't you ashamed to get a husband on such terms?"
"Not a bit," said Lady Wyke, coolly. "He doesn't love me now, but he will learn to love me. I suppose he is annoyed at you throwing him over."