"The soft voice utters, in tones of mingled hate and fear, 'You?'"—[page 149.]
"Possibly not, Madame Arthur." Then, with mock emotion: "Might I, dare I, ask you to give to my keeping, that incomparable maiden, that houri of houris, your young and lovely sister-in-law, Miss Ellen Arthur?"
The woman looked at him in silence for a time, and then, flinging herself upon a couch, burst into a peal of soft laughter. She understood it all now.
"So you are the expected lover!" she ejaculated, laughing afresh; "and she is up-stairs, in bright array, waiting for you."
"And I am down here, pleading for permission to address this pearl of price."
Cora arose and gathered her crimson wrap about her shoulders. "And how is it to be between us?" she asked coolly.
"My sweet Alice, if you were John Arthur's widow instead of John Arthur's wife, it should be as if the past ten years were but a dream."
"Indeed—provided, of course, I were John Arthur's heiress as well."
"Certainly!"