“Hush, Cora, do not wound her so!” he entreated, but she advanced and stood close by him, silencing him by an imperious gesture, her rich silken robes rustling, her jewels flashing, her proud, dark head lifted haughtily as she surveyed her shrinking rival, poor Jessie, in her worn, shabby garments and broken shoes.
“It was this way, Miss Lyndon: Frank Laurier and I were plighted lovers until three days ago, when we had a foolish little lovers’ quarrel and parted, vowing never to meet again. But our wedding day was but a few days off, and as soon as we separated both began to repent, but were too proud to say so. Is not this true, Frank?”
“Yes—but do not wound the child’s heart by telling her the rest,” he implored, almost inaudibly.
“Nonsense!” she answered lightly, and added: “This is the rest, Miss Jessie Lyndon. Frank saw you, and, struck with your pretty face, decided to pique me into a reconciliation by flirting with you. Hence the drive in the park that resulted as he wished, in the making-up of our little difference to-day, and I assure you that but for your intrusion here this evening, he would never have given you another thought!”
She ended with a little, tinkling laugh of triumphant scorn that fell like hailstones on the heart she had crushed.
The cruel truth was out, and when the echo of that exultant laugh died away there was a silence like death in the brilliant, sumptuous room.
Frank Laurier, with a low, inarticulate cry, tried to rise from his recumbent position, scarcely knowing what to do, but his sweetheart’s jeweled hand on his shoulder firmly pressed him back, while they gazed in rising awe at Jessie Lyndon.
She stood among them a breathing statue of shame-stricken girlhood, the hot color glowing in her cheeks, and mounting up to the roots of her bright hair, her red lips parted and tremulous, the big tears hanging like pearls on her lashes, her bosom rising and falling with emotion beneath the shabby gown that could not hide the budding grace of her perfect form.
This poor girl, so fair, so friendless, to whom no one spoke one word of sympathy, so terribly alone among them all, what would she do?
For several moments she did not speak a word—she could not, for the terrible, choking sensation in her throat, and the mad leaping of her burdened heart in her breast—then, as the scarlet glow faded into deadly pallor, she lifted her heavy eyes up to Cora Ellyson’s face.