"But she----"
"She!" echoed his wife decisively. "She will take the hint conveyed by the return of this card and keep a wide distance between Gabriel Mostyn's daughter and herself."
The door closed after her, and Guy, after a pause of amazement at the change in his usually calm wife, turned towards the window with a half frown on his face.
"She's got a temper after all," he said to himself, thrusting his hands into his pockets. "I might have guessed it. Sleeping volcanoes are always the worst when they do start."
[CHAPTER XV.]
A WOMAN SCORNED.
"What! will she place her foot upon my neck,
And hold me helpless, writhing in the dust?
Nay, such a thing is folly at the best,
'Tis ill to tamper with the meanest worm,
For, serpent-like, I'll wound her in the heel,
And when she falls from her magnificence,
I'll twist my coils around her dainty throat
And sting!--and sting!--and sting!--until she dies."
"Who is Mrs. Veilsturm?"
A good many people asked this question, when a woman, black-browed, voluptuous, and imperious as Cleopatra, flashed like an unknown star into the brilliance of a London season four years ago. No one could answer this question, the quidnuncs for once were at fault, and although ladies in drawing-rooms and men in clubs set their wits to work to find out all about her, no one could give an opinion with certainty as to who she was, where she came from, and what was the source of her income.
The society papers, who usually know everything, could not unravel this riddle, and it was reserved for the indefatigable Billy Dolser to lift in some measure the veil which hung over the past of this beautiful enigmatical woman. Under the heading of "A Cleopatra of To-day," an article appeared in the "Pepperbox," setting forth a very delightful story which satisfied everyone except a few suspicious grumblers, but whether it was fact or fiction, no one was quite sure.