“Is what she says true?” he asked, sternly. “That you deceived me, and that she is really the daughter of a gypsy?”
“It is quite true,” said the woman, laughing again. “My mother’s name was Clare Carewe, and that fellow who was waiting at table—don’t go, Stephen—is a relative of mine, a second cousin. He’d have been my fancy, not a little, ugly whipper-snapper like you,” she added, candidly, addressing her husband; “only the title was a temptation, you see. I do like having a handle to my name!”
“Sir Philip,” said Claud, turning sharply toward the Baronet, “this is not Stella. Who is it?”
“Your wife and Sir Philip Cranstoun’s daughter,” she cried, rising to her full height, and filling herself a brimming glass of champagne. “And I’ve let most people know all about me and my relations since I came here, I can tell you. Luncheon-parties, tea-parties, supper-parties, every day—rare old time; not a man but envied you your luck for having such a daughter, Sir Philip Cranstoun, and such a wife, my Lord Carthew!”
She made each of them a mock curtsey as she spoke, and then tossed off the wine.
“Here’s to our happy married life!” she cried. “You’ll both of you be pleased to hear that a newspaper man called upon me yesterday afternoon, and took down all about me—an interview, they call it, don’t they? All about my esteemed daddy marrying a gypsy, and me bolting on my wedding journey. He did laugh at that, I can tell you! And it’ll all be in the papers to-morrow morning!”
CHAPTER XXI. AND LAST.
THE CURSE FULFILLED.
Sir Philip Cranstoun walked out of the hotel that afternoon a beaten man.
He and Lord Carthew were equally powerless before this woman, whose audacity, vulgarity, and cunning were equally astonishing as revolting to both of them.
The gray wolf had been scoffed at and insulted to his face, not only by this hoarse-voiced virago, whose features resembled so strangely those of his late wife and of her daughter Stella, but by his own former servant, Stephen Lee, who had laughed to scorn his threats of punishment and dismissal.