“She is a thousand times more beautiful than ever,” he muttered, as he walked briskly down the avenue, “but her every action shows me that she abhors me, simply that and nothing else. And because of that, I feel the demon that is in me rising to the surface. I hate her for her coldness toward me and her pride, which will ever be an insurmountable barrier between us. I will marry you, my proud, haughty Jess, and after the knot is tied which makes me your lord and master, I will set my heel upon your white neck, crush that heart of yours, without mercy, and make life itself a torture to you. I will take a glorious revenge upon you for all the indignities you have heaped upon me, I promise you that.”
Finding himself opposite a fashionable café he entered it, and soon finished the bottle of champagne they brought him, another bottle was as quickly dispatched; and in the best of humor with himself and the world, he began to look about him, as to who made up the fashionable throng filing into the place, in hopes that he might discover some boon companion of other days, who would share with him another bottle of the shining, sparkling beverage which had already gone to his brain.
He was getting jovial, and that was the danger signal which should have warned Raymond Challoner to desist then and there from indulging in any more of his dearest foe—sparkling champagne. Already he had begun to see two waiters filling his glass instead of one.
“Not a soul I know in the entire room,” he muttered, staring around disconsolately, “now that is annoying; I would like some one to keep me company.”
Suddenly his attention was drawn to a gentleman who, with two companions, was watching him furtively from a convenient point across the room.
“Wonder where I have seen that face!” muttered Challoner, “can’t think to save my neck.”
His memory refused to aid him.
The gentleman was—John Dinsmore.
CHAPTER XLVI.
OLD FRIENDS MEET.
When John Dinsmore had left the home of Queenie, after learning of the supposed flight of Jess, his bride, his avowed intention was to shake the dust of New York from his feet forever, and to wander on the face of the earth until he should find her whom he had learned, all too late, was dearer to him than his very heart’s blood.