Lady Frobisher had risen, and Sir Clement did the same thing. Angela sat there breathlessly. With a slow, gliding movement Frobisher crept round the table to his wife's side. He took her two hands in his and gazed steadily into her face. Her eyes were dilated, her lips were parted, but she said nothing. Just for an instant she had one glance into the flame of passion and evil that Frobisher would have called his soul.
"You are not going to make a scene," he said, in the same caressing, silken voice that made Angela long to rise and lay a whip about his shoulders. "After all, Mrs. Benstein has a great pull over many women that you nod and smile to and shake hands with across afternoon tea-tables—she is quite respectable. Besides, this is part of my scheme, and I expect to be—well, we won't say obeyed. As a personal favour, I ask you to meet me in this matter."
Lady Frobisher dropped into a chair and her lips moved. Her voice came weak and from a long way off.
"I'll do as you wish," she said. "Of course, it would be far better if somebody else——"
Frobisher skipped from the room whistling an air as he went. The sudden grin flashed all his teeth gleamingly.
"She is going to cry," he muttered, "and I cannot stand a woman's tears. If there is one thing that cuts me to my shrinking soul, it is the sight of a lovely woman's tears."
CHAPTER XI.
BORROWED PLUMES.
Frobisher's highly sensitive nature demanded a flower as a little something to soothe his nerves. He passed into the conservatory where the Cardinal Moth was flaming overhead, he climbed like an over-dressed monkey up the extending ladder, and broke off a spray of the blooms. He patted them gently as he fixed the cluster in the silk lapel of his coat. Hafid looked in and announced that the car was ready. Hafid's face was white and set like that of a drug victim. Frobisher was at his most brilliant and best as the car flashed away. Presently the scene changed from the hot air and dusty glare of the streets, to green lawns and old trees and the soft music of a band of some colour and doubtful Hungarian origin. But there was the clear flow and the throbbing melody of it, and Frobisher's gloved hand beat gently to time. There were little knots of kaleidoscope colours, graceful and harmonious in graceful shades and the emerald green for a background. Here, too, was the Duchess with a swift, pecky smile for each guest, as if she had been carelessly wound up for the occasion, and something had gone wrong with the spring.
Frobisher slipped in and out of the various groups with his hands behind him. There were still certain people who seemed to be smelling something unpleasant as the wicked little baronet passed, but this only added zest and piquancy to his studies. It was some time before he found the object of his search—a study in yellow, and a large black hat nodding with graceful plumes. Something round her slim, white neck seemed to stream and dazzle, there was another flash of blue fire on her breast.