[CHAPTER XXXV.]
Alone in her room, Vivian Deane stood before her mirror and critically viewed the face reflected in it.
"I am more beautiful than Eugene Mallard's wife," she cried, nodding approvingly to the dimpled, smiling face, "and I will make that beauty tell. He does not look happy," she mused. "I, who know him so well, can see it. He has married her, but he is dissatisfied. There is something amiss between them. Ere I have been in this house a week, I will discover what it is." She nodded to the reflection in the mirror. "I had hoped that, seeing him married, I could steel my heart against him, but I find I can not."
"There is something connected with the manner in which Eugene Mallard first met his wife that I must find out," was Vivian's mental comment.
It was not long before Vivian discovered that her beautiful young hostess knew almost nothing of music.
"I think I have discovered her secret," she said to herself. "She must have been a poor girl, perhaps a working-girl."
Instead of seeing the wisdom of God in such an alliance, whereby the wealthy might share with the poor the gifts God had showered upon them, she was angrier than ever.
From the hour in which she had asked Ida the question concerning her meeting with Eugene Mallard, the young wife avoided being alone with her guest.
Vivian could not help but notice it, and she smiled to herself. She seemed to have no wish to capture handsome Captain Drury or Arthur Hollis. She preferred to talk to her hostess on each and every occasion.