In vino veritas—and, after three or four hours of constant tippling, there was that about this man's face which it was not good to see. The "ape-and-tiger" qualities within him, which for over ten years his way of life had fostered and developed, never very far beneath the surface, were rampant now, and stared from his bloodshot angry eyes, and showed themselves again in his rolling walk, his hot clenched hands, and swollen, sullen mouth. Had Clare Cavan's nature held aught of the womanly she would have shrunk from the notion of handing even an enemy over to the tender mercies of such a man as this.
But Clare Gavan had no pity for the girl who had supplanted her in her aunt's favour and in the love of so rich and handsome a suitor as Lorin Armstrong; and, although she was annoyed at the stupefied condition in which she had found the man of her search, she was by no means minded to put off her interview with him.
Stopping her cab, she sprang out and seized Wallace by the arm.
At first he stared at her stupidly, then, with a laugh and an oath, he tried to shake her off.
"Mr. Armstrong, don't you know me?" she hissed in his ear. "I am Clare Cavan, niece to Mrs. Vandeleur. We had a talk yesterday—about your cousin and that Miss Lina Grahame he is engaged to. Don't you remember?"
"Curse them both!"
He was swaying heavily in his walk, and hardly seemed capable of understanding her words; but Clare was not inclined to lose a moment.
"Jump into this cab with me!" she urged, holding tight to his arm, in part to sustain his halting footsteps and in part to impress the importance of her mission upon him. "People are staring at us. We can't talk here; and I have something I must tell you."
His spirit-laden breath made her faint and sick with disgust; but spite was stronger in Clare at that moment than any other feeling, and she waited quietly while Wallace hurled his massive form into the seat by her side, and with tipsy hilarity flung his arm about her waist.
"I remember you now," he hiccoughed—"the wicked little red-haired girl, whom I kissed yesterday afternoon over the tea-table when I went to the little witch's house to see what Lorin's girl was like! I hate that girl! I dreamed of her scornful face and disdainful eyes; and she 'cottons' to my precious cousin, and is down on me just because I am poor and out of favour. It's the way of the world—the way of the world——"