“There, that will do!” she said—“Another time——”
She gave him a look that shot like lightning from her eyes into his brain, and set it in a whirl.
“Diana!” He uttered the name as if it were a prayer.
“Another time!” she said, in a low, sweet tone—“And—quite soon! But—go now!”
He left her reluctantly, his mind disquieted and terrorised. Some potent force appeared to have laid hold of his entire being, drawing every nerve and muscle as if by a strong current of electricity. In a dim sort of way he was afraid,—but of what? This he could not formulate to himself, but when he had gone out of her presence he was aware of a strange and paralysing weakness and tiredness,—sensations new to him, and—as he was a great coward where any sort of illness was concerned—alarming. And yet—such was the hold her beauty had on him, that he had made up his mind to possess it or die in the attempt. All the men he knew about town were infatuated with the mere glimpse of the loveliness which flashed upon them like the embodiment of light from another and fairer world, and there was not one among them who did not secretly indulge in the same hope as himself. But the craze or “obsession,” or whatever it was that dominated her, as he thought, gave him a certain advantage over her other admirers. For if she really believed he had formerly been her lover, then surely there was something in her which would draw her to him through the mere fancy of such a possibility. Like all men who are largely endowed with complacent self-satisfaction, he was encased in a hide of conceit too thick to imagine that with the “obsession” (as he considered it) which she entertained, might also go the memory of his callous treatment of her in the past, entailing upon him a possible though indefinable danger.
She, meanwhile, after he had gone, sat down to think. A long mirror facing her gave her the reflection of her own exquisite face and figure—but her expression for the moment was cold and stern, as that of some avenging goddess. She looked at her hands—the hands her traitor lover had kissed—and opening a quaint jar of perfume on the table beside her, she dashed some of its contents over their delicate whiteness.
“For he has soiled them!” she said—“They are outraged by his touch!”
A deep scorn gathered in her eyes like growing darkness.
“Why should I trouble myself with any vengeance upon him?” she asked herself inwardly. “A mere lump of sensuality!—a man who considers no principle save that of his own pleasure, and has no tenderness or memory for me as the ‘old’ spinster whom he thought (and still thinks) was drowned in Devon!—what is he to me but an utterly contemptible atom!—and yet—the only sentiment I seem to be capable of now is hate!—undying hate, the antithesis of the once undying love I bore him! The revolt of my soul against him is like a revolt of light against darkness! Is he not punished enough by the gross and commonplace domestic life he has made for himself! No!—not enough!—not enough to hurt him!”
She drew a long breath, conscious of the power which filled her body and spirit,—a power which now for the first time seemed to herself terrific. She knew there was pent up within her a lightning force which was swift to attract and equally swift to destroy.