This was the startling letter that threw Rosalind into a fit of angry hysterics.
“The game is lost to me, I feel it, I know it! Oh, why did I let him go away from me over there, where those two scheming wretches were sure to nab him? Why didn’t I insist on an immediate marriage, so as to go with him? I was a fool letting him out of my sight as I did!”
“Rosalind, your fears are groundless. Nothing but some glaring fault in yourself would prevent the marriage, and I tremble over this flirtation with Adrian Vance if it even gets to his knowledge. You go too far, indeed, my dear.”
“Quit preaching, for Heaven’s sake; you drive me mad!” Rosalind cried angrily. “I shall flirt all I like, and with whom I like, for when I am tied down in wedlock with old Moneybags I shall have to be so proper I shall die of dreariness!”
When she had got over her hysterical fit, she dressed herself with care and went down to her guests, where Adrian Vance always flew to attend to her lightest wish. When they got away by themselves, presently, in a shaded alcove behind the curtain, she said carelessly:
“I have just had a letter from the senator, and the poor old man has had smallpox in a dreadful form. I am wondering if he will be so pitted as to make him more homely than he was before?”
“I hope he may be rendered so hideous that you will break the engagement on sight,” he responded passionately.
“Ah, Adrian, I wish he had your good looks along with his millions. Then I should be happy, indeed.”
He seized her white, jeweled hand in a crushing pressure.
“Ah, Rosalind, why are you so cruel when I love you so well and you pretend that you return it? Let that old man go, and give yourself to me.”