Laura followed her up stairs to the door of her apartment. And here Jenny handed her the light, dropped a courtesy, and disappeared.
Mrs. Courtney opened the door and entered. It was a neat, pretty little room, with white curtains on the windows and white dimity hangings on the bed; a wan-hued carpet on the floor, and a cozy arm-chair beside the window. Mr. Courtney sat on the bed, still dressed in his evening costume—his arm resting on the snowy pillows and his face bowed upon it. His dark elf-locks fell heavily over the white pillows, as he lay as motionless as though death had stifled forever his wildly Throbbing heart.
He looked up as his wife entered, and dashes back his long, dark hair. Laura really felt for him—the wretched victim of his own turbulent passions—but pity and sympathy she knew would be alike misunderstood by him, if manifested; and even, perhaps, be adding fuel to the flames already raging in his breast.
"Oh! you are here, are you?" she said, setting her lamp on the toilet-stand, and throwing herself languidly in the arm-chair, "I thought you had gone to Westport."
"And left you to flirt with your new lover. Ha! Ha! You thought so, did you?"
What a goblin laugh it was. Laura shivered involuntarily, but she would not abate one jot of her defiant sarcasm.
"Yes, I saw you playing the eavesdropper," she said, as she began taking off her collar and bracelets; "it is just what I expected of you. You did it so expertly, one would think you had been taking lessons all your life, in listening at keyholes. Perhaps, you have learned from some hotel-waiter, or lady's maid."
"By Heaven! I will strangle you!" he exclaimed, roused to madness by her taunting tone. And he sprang to his feet, glaring upon her, as though he would fulfill his threat.
"Come, Mr. Courtney, be calm, or I shall be under the painful necessity of going down stairs, and inquiring where the nearest lunatic asylum is located. Don't rave, now, or try to transfix me with your flashing glances. I am not, in the slightest degree, afraid of you, Mr. Courtney."
And Mrs. Courtney drew her little form up to its full height, and looked with cool contempt, in his face.