But she retreated from him in terror.
"Never! never!" she cried out, in a passionate voice.
"Xenie, Xenie!" cried Howard Templeton, advancing sternly, "do not stain your soul longer with such a horrible falsehood. Give Jack Mainwaring the child! You well know that it is his and Lora's own!"
[CHAPTER XXV.]
Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the daring intruder.
She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache.
He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of passionate defiance.
"How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard Templeton?"
He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate vehemence.