“You mind your own business, Miss Allen. Fair’s my wife, and she’s got to live with me. If she tries on any foolishness with me, she’ll only make matters worse for herself.”
Fair’s eyes flashed in disdainful defiance, but just then Alice Stevens, one of the pretty working girls whom Fair had been so anxious to invite to her wedding, went up to Belva Platt, and asked curiously:
“What did Fair do, Miss Platt, that made you so mad with her?”
“Never mind!” answered Belva angrily; but Lucy Miller, another one of the girls, exclaimed vivaciously:
“Oh, I know, Alice! She cut Belva out with Waverley Osborne, and Belva was so mad she did this to get even with Fair. But I think it was very mean, don’t you, Alice?”
“Yes, I do, for Fair didn’t care for Waverley at all, and she’s a good girl, and I think it’s a shame that Belva’s treated her so bad,” answered Alice, with a reproachful glance at Belva, who paid no heed to it, for at that moment she heard Fair saying:
“Come, mother—come, Sadie! We will go home.”
“Ladies, you have not partaken of the wedding feast yet. Won’t you drink some beer to the happiness of the wedded pair?” Belva called out insolently, with ineffable malice; but no one noticed her. Fair, with her hand on her mother’s arm, was moving toward the door, with Sadie Allen on the other side of her. George Lorraine started to follow them, but the deceived bride looked around at him with burning eyes.
“Do not dare follow me, nor come near me!” she said, with a blaze of scorn, and he shrank back like a culprit.
The beautiful, angry eyes turned from him then, and rested on Belva’s face with its fiendish smile of triumph.