Not a woman would speak to her: Lord Welter had coarsely told her so that morning; and bitterness and hatred were in her heart. It was for this she had bartered honour and good fame. She had got her title, flung to her as a bone to a dog by Welter; but her social power, for which she had sold herself, was lower, far lower, than when she was poor Adelaide Summers.
It is right that it should be so, as a rule; in her case it was doubly right.
Charles knew all this well enough. And at the first glance at her face he knew that "the iron had entered into her soul" (I know no better expression), and he was revenged. He had ceased to love her, but revenge is sweet—to some.
Not to him. When he looked at her, he would have given his life that she might smile again, though she was no more to him what she had been. He turned, for fear of being seen, saying to himself,—
"Poor girl! Poor dear Adelaide! She must lie on the bed she has made. God help her!"
Haphazard was the first favourite—facile princeps. He was at two and a half to one. Bill Sykes, at three and a half, was a very dangerous horse. Then came Carnarvon, Lablache, Lick-pitcher, Ivanhoe, Ben Caunt, Bath-bun, Hamlet, Allfours, and Colonel Sibthorp. The last of these was at twenty to one. Ben Caunt was to make the running for Haphazard, so they said; and Colonel Sibthorp for Bill Sykes.
So he heard the men talking round Lady Welter's carriage. Hornby's voice was as loud as any one's, and a pleasant voice it was; but they none of them talked very low. Charles could hear every word.
"I am afraid Lady Welter will never forgive me," said Hornby, "but I have bet against the favourite."
"I beg your pardon," said Adelaide.