She had not been mistaken. Jessy Horsfield was in the automobile, and she had had a few moments in which to study Vane and his companion. The man's look and the girl's expression had struck her as significant; and her lips set in an ominously tight line as the car sped on. She felt that she almost hated Vane; and there was no doubt that she entirely hated the girl at his side. It would be soothing to humiliate her, to make her suffer, and though the exact mode of setting about it was not very clear just yet, she thought it might be managed. Her companion wondered why she looked preoccupied during the rest of the journey.
CHAPTER XXIV
JESSY STRIKES
It was the afternoon before Vane's departure for the North, and Evelyn, sitting alone for the time being in Mrs. Nairn's drawing-room, felt disturbed by the thought of it. She sympathized with his object, as it had been briefly related by her hostess, but she supposed there was a certain risk attached to the journey, and that troubled her. In addition to this, there was another point on which she was not altogether pleased. She had twice seen him acknowledge a bow from a very pretty girl whose general appearance suggested that she did not belong to Evelyn's own walk in life, and that very morning she had noticed him crossing a street in the young woman's company. Vane, as it happened, had met Kitty Blake by accident and had asked her to accompany him on a visit to Celia. Evelyn did not think she was of a jealous disposition, and jealousy appeared irrational in the case of a man whom she had dismissed as a suitor; but the thing undoubtedly rankled in her mind. While she was considering it, Jessy Horsfield entered the room.
"I'm here by invitation, to join Mr. Vane's other old friends in giving him a good send-off," she explained. "Only, Mrs. Nairn told me to come over earlier."
Evelyn noticed that Jessy laid some stress upon her acquaintance with
Vane, and wondered whether she had any motive for doing so.
"I suppose you have known him for some time?"
"Oh, yes," was the careless answer. "My brother was one of the first to take him up when he came to Vancouver."
The phrase jarred on Evelyn. It savored of patronage; besides, she did not like to think that Vane owed anything to the Horsfields.
"Though I don't know much about it, I understood that they were opposed to each other," she said coldly.