“Ah! Tame cat? General utility man?”
“Hardly! He’s full of life and a charming companion.”
“Hm.”
There was another silence and then he asked abruptly: “Is he in love with Ida?”
This time Ora dropped her work and sat up rigidly; her hands turned cold. There was a peculiar alteration of pitch in Gregory’s voice that might register jealousy in a hypersensitive ear. And when his face looked most like a bronze reproduction of itself, his friends deduced that he was masking emotion.
Ora’s brain always worked swiftly. Was it possible that by subtle manipulation she could reunite this man and her friend? That he loved herself she no longer doubted, but it was equally doubtful if he would ever confess it; on the cards that if he did he never would see her again. If she left the country after adroitly re-awakening his interest in Ida and playing on his vanity and jealousy, would not reaction, the desire for consolation and companionship, carry him straight to the wife whose beauty and magnetism had once, and not so long ago, aroused all the ardours of his manhood? Ida was far more beautiful now, and quite capable of holding any man. Ora did not for a moment believe that Ida loved her husband, or never would she herself have returned to Butte; but she had divined her mortification, her wounded pride; and as a young and beautiful woman Ida needed and was entitled to the protection of her husband.
Was this her moment? Her great opportunity? Her bosom heaved, her breath came short. Almost she experienced the subtle delights of renunciation, of sacrifice, of the martyrdom of woman. It would be a great rôle to play, a great memory. And after all she had Valdobia. It was this last irresistible reflection that gave her soaring spirit a sharp tumble and she laughed aloud.
Gregory turned his head and smiled as he met the cynical amusement in her eyes. “What is it?”
“I was merely commiserating poor Mowbray. Of course he is more or less épris; but Ida—she hasn’t it in her to love any man.”
“That is the conclusion I arrived at long ago. But it looked as if he had followed her here, and I don’t care for that sort of talk.”