"Oh, yes. I have known him for a long while." She had quite recovered from her surprise, and spoke lightly, in her usual tone. "What a small world it is after all."
"Dinner at seven, Lillian," Helen said to her as she closed the door; and then she was alone.
"So Val is here," she murmured. "Val, of all people in the world." She flung back her head with a reckless laugh, and began to pace up and down the room.
A flood of recollections swept over her; recollections which stirred her with a strange emotion. How long ago it seemed since sunny-tempered strong-willed Val Farr had wooed her in so masterful a way. What folly it had been, and yet a sweet folly withal! Miss Stuart paused midway in the room. Her face softened, and her beautiful mouth drooped tenderly. She had craved a splendid future which Val could not give her, so she had thrust his love out of her heart, and filled its place with the admiration and exactions of the gay world in which she moved. Val's misfortunes, his poverty, and his estrangement from his family gave her the opportunity which she sought to jilt him. She frowned with vexation as she recalled the look of scorn that he had cast at her when she had laid bare to him the aims and ambitions to which she had sacrificed their love. And after all, it had been a useless, needless exposure, for Val had come to her to give her her freedom. She told herself that she had acted wisely, she laughed to scorn the sentiment that was so hard to stifle—but no other man had ever taken Val's place.
They had met from time to time in Washington, during the past few years, and at each fresh meeting Farr had found himself more and more disillusioned concerning the woman whom he had once loved. Something of this Lillian Stuart divined, with a bitterness of spirit which she could not quell. His indifference stung her to the quick, and she could not renounce the hope that she might win him back, if only circumstances would give her the opportunity. Miss Stuart's thoughts brought her back to the present. She drew her brows together and stared meditatively before her, with eyes that saw nothing of the room around her:
"I wonder if Val is in love with one of these girls, and if so which one."
Jean Lawrence's face flashed before her. She struck her hands sharply together, and an angry light gleamed in her eyes.
"That would be a curious way of punishing me. I have always detested that sister of Helen's."
She crossed to the mirror, and gazed critically at the picture presented there. A smile, slow and cruel, touched her lips, and with a satisfied air of triumph she turned away and began to dress for dinner.
The hands of the little French clock on the mantel were close upon seven, when a knock came at the door and Helen entered. She started back with a faint gasp of admiration, as Miss Stuart turned from the dressing-table and swept across the room to meet her.