But Mrs. Howard was one of those truly good women who are unconsciously hard toward the erring, and call that hardness by the name of justice. Fair’s deceit had so outraged her that she felt no wish to be her friend any more.
So she shook her head, and replied frankly:
“I am not as noble in mind as you seem to be, Prince Gonzaga. I cannot forgive your wife for the way she tricked and deceived me into being her friend. When I leave your villa, which I will do as soon as Bayard Lorraine is able to be moved, my acquaintance with Princess Gonzaga will be forever at an end.”
He bowed, and expressed some polite regret, but in his heart he was not sorry.
“She will be more easily won when she realizes that she has not a friend left but me,” he thought, in triumph, and gave himself up to unrestrained joy at the victory he had won over the girl whom he loved in spite of his belief that she was mercenary and heartless.
“It was an easy victory,” he repeated sarcastically, as Mrs. Howard had done, and he waited impatiently for the hour of his probation to pass.
“Vain little beauty, she is making herself beautiful for her prince,” he thought egotistically, adding moodily: “How I hate and love her in the same breath, the mercenary little wretch!”
But they would not have felt so sanguine if they could have seen what was transpiring in the room where the hapless Fair had been left alone with her sympathizing maid.
As soon as Mrs. Howard left the room, Fair turned eagerly to Betty.
“Betty, you are my good friend,” she exclaimed eagerly. “Now, you must help me to escape from here. I will not see that man! I will not live with him! I would die first!”