His blue eyes gleamed with pleasure at the bare idea of jealousy on the part of this cold, proud fiancée.
"I was not even looking at Miss Fielding," he protested. "It was the elder Miss Meredith that attracted my attention. My dear Azalia, the girl, with her brown eyes and tawny hair, and that stately carriage, is really a beauty. She reminds me of the Duchess De Vere, one of the loveliest ladies in London."
Azalia looked with pleasure at stately Edith Meredith, and also at the pretty and petite Io. Both had a look of Laurie that always made her traitor heart beat quick and fast.
All the evening her anxious eyes kept straying to the box. Would he not come in during the whole time?
No, he did not come, to her bitter disappointment; and the next day she heard, with surprise, that he had not accompanied his party to Washington at all, but had gone South on some important business.
[CHAPTER XLVI.]
Face to face with her half-sister at last, with all pretenses laid aside, Jewel had never spent a more uncomfortable hour in her life.
She had sent a note requesting a private interview the day after the meeting at the opera, and Azalia Brooke had granted it on the condition that her maid should be present at the interview, stationed in an anteroom with doors open between, so that she could see if not hear all that passed.