"Isn't it funny," she said lightly, "how Jane the Good, and I, Athena the Bad, always attract the same man? They don't always like us at the same time, but——"
She stopped speaking, for Dick Wantele had turned and left the room, leaving the door open behind him, a thing he very seldom did.
CHAPTER XVII
"Nous devrions baiser les pantoufles de certaines femmes du côté où les pantoufles touchent à la terre, car en dedans ce serait tout au plus digne des anges."
The long day came to an end at last. Jane felt a sense of almost physical relief in the knowledge that to-morrow night she would no longer be there, and yet she had not spoken of her decision to the others.
For Athena Maule the day was not yet over. She waited till the house was sunk into darkness and stillness, and then, dismissing her maid, she put on a dressing-gown and went downstairs to the library.
The book she had mentally marked down that morning was found by her in a moment; but instead of looking at it there she took it to her boudoir. It was possible that Wantele—Wantele who had been so rude and unkind to her this afternoon—might, like herself, feel wakeful, and come down to the library.
With the heavy old law book in her arms, she made her way through the now dark corridor which ran the whole length of Rede Place till she reached her own sitting-room, and there, before turning up the light, she locked the door.