Confident in this knowledge she settles herself to abide by her decision. But in this case it turns out that she has reckoned without her host.
A week passes. Such a week as Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy have seldom spent, so quiet, so void of callers and excitement as it is. They have commenced by taking their usual daily drive, but before the week is out they discontinue it. Such curious, insolent glances follow them, such cold, averted looks meet them.
The fickle world that smiled on them its sweetest so lately, has only frowns and shrugs, and whispered detractions now.
Even Mrs. Cleveland's iron assurance quails before the storm of public disapproval, and she decides to hide her diminished head in the luxurious shades of Darnley House.
Of even this solace she is soon bereft.
A freezingly-polite letter arrives from the master of the mansion, desiring to know when they propose to vacate his premises. Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy return a prompt defiance to this inquiry, stating that they do not intend to leave at all.
And now the trodden worm turns with a vengeance.
On the following day all the servants of Darnley House leave in a body, after informing their mistress of their discharge by Mr. Noble. They decline to be re-engaged by Mrs. Noble, and Mrs. Cleveland hints bitterly at bribery on the part of her whilom son-in-law.
On the same day arrives a concise statement from Mr. Noble to the effect that a public sale of the house and its effects is advertised for the third day of that week. He is outdoing even themselves in cool, relentless malice.
"We shall have to go. We have been fairly whipped out by that scheming villain," Mrs. Cleveland groans, in indescribable wrath, and bitterness of spirit, and Ivy, throwing herself down on her satin couch, hurls bitter maledictions on Leslie Noble's name, and wishes him dead a hundred times.