At times she is consumed with a sense of the mortification and indignity of those last months with Braine. She feels a bitter desire for some sort of revenge. What would she have known of longing and ambition, and falsehood and madness, but for him?
She has fallen into a morbid state. She now sees no one. She is without the social pale of her old acquaintance among whom she ruled. The thing for which she has been in training for years is denied her. That which nature intended her for—the life of a loving woman—has been made tasteless to her. Her natural appetite is ruined; her acquired taste is ungratified. She thinks:
"Could I be occupied! Could I forget, a little while!"
She throws herself upon the divan with a little moan. She lies so for an hour, perhaps. A card is brought her—she reads "Dalzel."
She rises with a curious expression on her face. She stands expectant.
An hour later as he is leaving, he says:
"Of all the women able to accomplish the thing, you are the best fitted." And watching him go, she thinks:
"This is the clever man who was cleverer than my friend. What better incentive could a woman want?"