"Hell has no fury like a woman scorned!" Felise exclaimed, repeating her favorite text. "Be patient, mother, and you shall yet see what a woman scorned can do."
"What does Colonel Carlyle propose to do with himself while his wife is immured in her convent?" asked Mrs. Arnold.
"He talks of a trip around the world. He affects to be very fond of travel now. But I could see while he talked to me that the old fool repented his intention and would retract it if he could."
"Perhaps he may do so yet."
"No, he will not. He is too proud and stubborn to do so voluntarily, and I think that Bonnibel has acquiesced so readily in the plan that he can find no loop-hole of escape from it. She is as proud as he is; besides, she does not love him, and his unreasoning harshness has rendered her perfectly reckless. She will go to the school, if only to break his heart."
"Perhaps he will die of grief, Felise, or disappointment, and then she will be left a wealthy young widow," cautions Mrs. Arnold.
"No danger," sneers Felise, cynically. "Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love, as the immortal Shakespeare says, mother. I do not anticipate such a contingency. The old dotard has buried two partners and not succumbed to the pangs of bereavement yet. It is possible he may live to plant the weeping willow over his little white-faced dove."
"Perhaps so. She has never seemed over strong since her illness last summer."
"She has been grieving over the loss of Leslie Dane," Felise answered, carelessly.
She goes to the piano, strikes a few chords, and gets up again, wandering about the room restlessly. There is a marked fitfulness and unrest in her every movement, and her eyes flash and roll about in their sockets in a way that troubles her mother.