Then she paused abruptly. She remembered that she had to keep up some pretense of kindness toward the child, else Norman would discredit Finette’s clever story by which she had saved her mistress.
She put on her sweetest smile, and promised that she would go back to Verelands as soon as he wished.
“Of course I will keep away from the child’s apartments until she is quite well, for I am horribly afraid of that fever,” she said. “But I am heartily tired of the life here, and long to be at home, where I can have more of your society, Norman. Indeed, you ought not to blame me for amusing myself with other men, when you have been spending half of your time at Verelands with your mother and Little Sweetheart.”
“Come back with me, and you shall not have to complain of any lack of my society,” he replied, gayly; and she agreed to go that very day.
The ladies at the hotel were heartily glad to hear of her going, but Lord Stuart declared that he was désolé.
“I shall haunt Verelands,” he declared.
“Oh, pray do not threaten anything so ghostly. I give you leave to call in the orthodox fashion,” she replied, carelessly.
In truth, she did not care in the least whether she ever saw the infatuated nobleman again. He had served her purpose—helped her to punish Norman—and now she was ready to fling him aside like a worn-out glove.
But her grace and beauty, her coquettish wiles, had thrown a glamour over the mature man’s heart. He believed that she was weary of her boy-husband; he pitied her and despised Norman de Vere. What right had that boy to appropriate this peerless creature?
So strong was his passion that he began to indulge dreams of winning her for his own—honorably, of course. Lord Stuart was the soul of honor. But what was there to hinder a divorce? She no longer loved that smooth-faced boy, and he fancied that she had shown signs that she cared for himself.