"You didn't say it that way then," he replied.
"No—I was too blind to see." She arose. "I am going," she said; and went down the crowded piazza with the same contemptuously ignoring smile as at her coming.
As they neared the entrance—the eyes of all whom they had passed upon them, the eyes of all those who were yet before them busy elsewhere—a tall, good-looking young fellow sauntered out from the Club-house and met them, face to face, before the door.
It was Harry Lorraine!
For an instant husband and wife confronted each other—while the onlookers gasped, and gaped, and were silent. Never had they thought to witness such a scene! Even Pendleton hesitated, uncertain what would be Mrs. Lorraine's course. Assuredly it was a most unfortunate contretemps—a trying moment.
She, however, did not seem to mind it in the least—the smile still lingered on her lips as she paused and looked the man, whom she had sworn before God's altar to love and to cleave to, calmly in the face. It was a look of inquiry—is it to be an armed neutrality, or is it to be war?
Then suddenly Lorraine's face changed. His startled surprise vanished—he saw only the woman who had shamed him and disgraced herself; and without a word, either of reproach or of greeting, he turned from her and went back into the house.
A soft rustle passed over the craning throng, growing quickly into a buzzing of whispers and low laughter:—Lorraine had refused even to recognize her!
The next instant the Victoria drew up and Pendleton handed Mrs. Lorraine in.