Meanwhile Lucian Davlin interpreted all this in his own favor. "She is proud and still resentful," he thought. "And she is using Percy as a medium of approach to me."
At last Lucian, growing impatient, resorted to an old, old trick. He watched his opportunity, and one evening, as Madeline was following Cora from the drawing-room, the door of which he was holding open for their exit, he pushed into her hand a small scrap of paper.
She would have dropped it; her first impulse was to do so, but Cora turned as her hand was about to loosen its clasp upon the fragment. So she passed on, carrying it with her to her own room. There she opened it and read these pencilled words:
For God's sake do not torture me longer. You have condemned me without a hearing. Be as merciful as you are strong and lovely. At least let me see you alone, when I can plead for myself.
Half an hour later, Hagar tapped at his door. When he opened it, she put in his hand a bit of paper, on which were these faintly-pencilled lines:
If you desire my friendship, you must date our acquaintance from this week. You never knew me in the past.
"And she is right," muttered he; "the Madeline Payne of last summer, and the Madeline Payne of now, are to each other as the chrysalis to the butterfly, in beauty; as the kitten to the panther, in spirit; as the babe to the woman, in mind. That Madeline pleased me; this one, I love."
So he accepted the position, and did not give up striving to draw from her some special word, or look, or tone, that he need not feel belonged as much to Percy as to himself.
Meantime Percy was revolving various things in his learned head.
He had been, as a matter of course, deeply impressed with her beauty, and he had been much puzzled as well.