"That is the way to treat pretty women who tell lies," he observed, coolly picking up his hat as he spoke. "And, now that I have sampled both the young ladies, I won't stop and see the old one. You and I are friends, Miss Cavan, and you may rely on me to do you a good turn if it suits my book also. As to this proposed marriage of my angelic cousin with that infernally proud stuck-up girl, I'm no more minded to it than you. I should dearly love to pay her out for her insolence, and I have little doubt that an opportunity will come in my way. You know who obligingly finds mischief for idle hands. Well, mine are always idle. There's some one coming in down-stairs—your aunt, I expect. Give me another kiss before she comes. Oh, don't pretend to be offended; it's silly waste of time! Girls with eyes like yours—les yeux en coulisse—always like kisses! And who knows? I am worth encouraging, for I may be my uncle's heir after all."
CHAPTER XXI.
There is a cynical French proverb which states that the worse the man, the better he understands women.
In the case of the two Armstrongs the saying was so far true that Wallace Armstrong the elder, after only half-an-hour's intercourse, gauged to a nicety the mental and moral attributes of Clare Cavan, of which his cousin had but an elementary notion. He admired her beauty, and looked with amusement on her untruthfulness, her slyness, and her envious disposition. Vanity and sensuality were two qualities he always expected to find in women, and he at once recognised them as leading characteristics of Clare's nature. She belonged to a type he thoroughly understood; and he knew perfectly well that in her secret heart she would not in the least resent the insolently-worded admiration or the careless caresses of a man as handsome as himself, even though she believed herself to be in love with his cousin. Like many another man who professes to understand women, however, Wallace Armstrong had gained his experience among the least worthy members of a sex which he in consequence thought himself justified in scorning. Love of money and love of themselves were, in his opinion, the two ruling motives in every woman's life; and by appealing strongly enough to either of these, any man could make a conquest of any woman—a conquest which, when made, would be, in Wallace's opinion, not worth having. These ideas, which he freely professed, only made him the more popular with such women as came in his way, and he was able from experience to calculate exactly the effect of his unconventional behaviour upon Clare Cavan.
That young lady was not accustomed to being found out. Her drawing-room triumphs had not prepared her for this rough-and-ready style of address; but she relished it none the less, belonging as she did to the type of woman who secretly worships a bully. Her intense vanity led her to believe that the elder Armstrong had fallen in love with her at first sight; and she would have been deeply mortified had she known that his sole reason for ingratiating himself with her, and presently with Mrs. Vandeleur, was that he might have opportunities of meeting the girl who had been introduced to him as Lina Grahame. Clare Cavan's kiss he instantly forgot; but Lina Grahame's look of scorn and hatred seemed to burn into his soul.
How dared she—a penniless companion, a prudish, calculating, fortune-hunter, intent on securing a wealthy husband—how dared she gaze at him as though he were a thing accursed? Not for a moment could he forget her dark eyes, distended with horror, as they fixed themselves upon him, or the disdainful curve of her sweet red month, or the tone in which she said she loved Lorin for being an honourable gentleman, but pitied him since she had met his cousin.
For years he had not wished for anything so ardently as he now longed to humble this girl's pride and give her back scorn for scorn. Her face lingered persistently in his mind; he had but to close his eyes to recall every feature with absolute distinctness, even the two perpendicular lines between her eyebrows when she frowned, and the quick trick of her fingers pushing her hair from her brow, seeming strangely familiar to him. It was presumably the sympathy of hate, he told himself, which made her image so clear and dominant in his mind. Yet he lingered at Mrs. Vandeleur's, in the hope that Lina Grahame might again appear, for fully an hour after the elder lady's return.
His handsome appearance and surly manners interested Mrs. Vandeleur, who promptly prophesied all manner of evil things for him from a cursory study of his hand and face.
"You have quite a remarkably wicked hand!" she exclaimed, bending over it with a touch of genuine excitement. "Decidedly you were born under an evil star, for you bring misfortunes to yourself and to other people alike; and what is more curious, you appear to deserve them. I am really afraid of telling you more, lest I should hurt your feelings."