Her face grew hard and cold, a cruel smile curled her scarlet lips, her eyes flashed with scorn.
Pride and passion spoke in every curve of her mobile, spirited face.
The lace hangings at the entrance parted noiselessly, and a man stepped lightly across the threshold.
Not a sound announced his presence, yet she looked up instantly, as if by some subtle inner sense she divined that he was there.
"Ah!" she breathed, in a hissing tone of hate and scorn.
A mocking smile curled the man's lip as he bowed before her.
"Ah! ma tante," he said, in a cool tone of scorn, "permit me to offer my congratulations."
Some emotion too great for utterance seemed to overpower her, so that she struggled vainly for speech a moment, while he stood silent, with folded arms, looking down at her from his haughty height with a look of veiled hatred in his dark-blue eyes.
They were deadly foes, this man and woman, yet nature had formed them as if for the perfect complement of each other.