He flushed, then laughed, answering, coolly:
“Thank you; but the plan isn’t feasible. I shouldn’t mind making love to the pretty little thing, for she’s sweet enough to turn any man’s head; but I intend, like yourself, to marry money when I sacrifice myself on Hymen’s altar.”
“Oh, brother, I am wretched, wretched! It isn’t alone for the money I want him. I have had other offers—rich ones, too; but I love him, love him, love him! I must win him or die! All in a minute I feel desperately wicked, and willing to do anything to win him for my own. I hate that girl already, and wish her dead! Why does she not go and kill herself like her mother?”
“Probably she will in the end; but she isn’t unhappy enough yet.”
“Then let us do something to drive her mad with despair at once!” cried Maybelle, feverishly, recklessly, her dark eyes flashing with a tigerish light not good to see.
Otho’s eyes flashed back the same spirit, for his heart was burning with a cruel passion for bonny Floy. Stooping close to her ear, he whispered, hoarsely:
“Suppose I could drive her mad with love for me?”
“Try it, Otho, try it! Begin at once, please!” she responded, eagerly, hopefully.
“I will, for I fancy she admires me immensely already by her blushes when I speak to her, and I’ll follow up the good impression at once, storm the castle of her fancy, as it were, with ardent love-making, persuade her to elope with me, perhaps—oh, a mock marriage, of course! She is poor, and so she could not be taken au serieux.”
She listened without a protest to his diabolical scheme for wrecking the life of a pure and lovely girl. Oh, a jealous woman can be so hard and pitiless!