"I am beautiful enough to be a queen, yet I can not win the heart of the only man I ever cared for," she thought, with a sort of agony at her failure.
But every pang she suffered only made her more determined to triumph in the end.
"Only let me get Flower out of the way, and I may win him yet. I was near to it when she came, and surely I can recover my lost ground some day," she said.
She was driven in her carriage to Mrs. Meredith's, and found them waiting, although they hoped that she would change her mind even at the last moment.
But no, Jewel took her seat in the train as grim and implacable as fate itself, and determined as ever to make all else on earth yield to her imperious will and desire.
The Merediths, thoroughly disgusted at her jealous freak, sat with her; but there was very little said by any one. But Jewel scarcely noticed the constraint and silence of Laurie's mother and sisters. She was completely wrapped up in her own dark thoughts, and remained so until they reached the end of their long journey.
[CHAPTER XLV.]
Lord Ivon and his party had been in Washington a week, when they became aware that the Merediths, with Miss Fielding, had also arrived in the city.
It was on one of Patti's nights at the opera that the two parties became aware of each other's presence in opposite stage-boxes. Their first start of surprise was succeeded on either hand by amicable nods of pleased recognition.