Then rage filled his heart. The party passed on without further notice of him, and he saw Beatrice speak to Sir George Weston. What she said to him he did not know, but he caught a part of his reply.
"I heard of her in Vienna. She had a curious reputation. Her salon was the centre of attraction to a peculiar class of men. Magnificent, but——"
That was all he heard. He was not sure he heard even that. There was a hum of voices, and the sound of laughter everywhere, and so it was difficult for him to be sure of what any particular person said. Neither might the words apply to the woman at his side.
Bewildered, he turned towards Olga again, caught the flash of her eyes' wild fire, and was again fascinated by the bewildering seductiveness of her charms. What was the matter with him? He did not seem master of himself. Everything was strange—bewildering.
Perhaps it was because of the wine he had drunk, perhaps because that fiery liquid had inflamed his imagination; but it seemed to him that nothing mattered. Right! Wrong! What were they? Mere abstractions, the fancies of a diseased mind. Wild recklessness filled his heart. He had seen Beatrice Stanmore smile on Sir George Weston, and he had heard the woman at his side say that she, Beatrice, wore this Devonshire squire's ring.
Well, what then? Why should he care?
And all the time Olga Petrovic was by his side. She had seemed unconscious of Beatrice's presence; she had not noticed the look of horror and loathing in the girl's eyes. She was only casting a spell on him—a spell he could not understand.
Then he had a peculiar sensation. This mysterious woman was bewitching him. She was sapping his will even as Romanoff had sapped it years before. Why did he connect them?
"Countess," he said, "do you know Count Romanoff?"
The woman hesitated a second before replying.