There was admiration in her gaze as she turned unwillingly from her visitor to the glass, smearing her chin as she talked. "I did hear of him being alive," she said. "I saw that in one of our papers, 'English Gentleman Comes Back from the Grave' and so on. I was scared when I thought of you. They said what a joy it was to his wife and his mother, and I thought they had been too hasty. But there was never a word more, though I watched the paper. I decided he must have walked into the offices here and said—'I do not desire you to mention this'—I'd heard it was done sometimes by the upper classes. But—!"
Again her face expressed unqualified admiration. "You must have had a nerve," she said, "you poor kitten!"
The girl sprang up, her mouth proud, her eyes imploring.
"Adelaide," she said, "you were good to me once, you—you tried to help me. Won't you believe me when I tell you I am nothing to him? It was all acting, all acting from beginning to end. Never real, never what you said in your letter. I was only staying in his house playing—that—part till I could disappear without scandal."
"What?" said the woman bluntly. "Has he never said to you—'If I can free myself of the other I'll marry you?'"
"Oh, never; never!"
"Then," said Adelaide, "it's not for your sake his lawyers are getting busy, trying to find what they call flaws, trying to break his marriage? They can try.... You didn't know?"
She turned on the girl with a suddenness that took her unawares; read her face.
"He's not playing you fair!" she cried.
It was remarkable, just then, how she resembled Julia. Half dressed as she was, half made-up, her eyes darkened, and scorn on her carmined lip.