Meanwhile Bonnibel, as she walks away, again asks, with sweet unconsciousness:
"Has anything happened, Colonel Carlyle?"
"Let us go to your private parlor; I will tell you there," he answers, coldly.
Inside that safe retreat they confront each other in momentary silence, Bonnibel anxious, troubled, and totally unconscious, Colonel Carlyle pale with anger and wild, unreasoning jealousy, his brain on fire with contending passions that have been seething there ever since Felise's consummate art had been employed to torture him this evening.
"Now you will tell me?" she inquires, standing before him with loosely-clasped hands, the fleecy drapery falling from her shoulders, the fairest vision his eyes ever rested upon.
"Bonnibel, you surely do not pretend to be ignorant that you have given me cause for offense?" he exclaims, hoarsely.
Her blue eyes dilate; she retreats a step with genuine surprise depicted on her face. Then she remembered her promise about waltzing.
"Surely, there is some misunderstanding," she answers, slowly. "I assure you, sir, that I have not waltzed any more since you asked me not to do so."
"You have done worse, much worse!" he exclaims, passionately, "and your affectation of innocence must certainly be feigned. No woman in her senses could be oblivious to the fact that your open flirtation with that silly rhymester, Byron Penn, is simply scandalous."