Truly she had sowed the wind, and the work of her small white hands was already established upon her.
Never in her life had she really ever cared for any man. Her caprice for Desboro, founded on the lesser motives, had been the nearest approach.
It had cost her all her self-control, all her courage, to play the diplomat with her husband for the sake of obtaining his consent to keep the forged porcelains. And after all it had been in vain.
In spite of her white misery and wretchedness, now, as she sat there in the drawing-room alone, her cheeks crimsoned hotly at the memory of her arts and wiles and calineries; of her new shyness with the man she had never before spared; of her clever attitude toward him, the apparent dawn of tenderness, the faint provocation in her lifted eyes—God! It should have been her profession, for she had taken to it like a woman of the streets—had submitted like one, earning her pay. And, like many, had been cheated in the end.
She rose unsteadily, cooling her cheeks in her hands and gazing vacantly in front of her.
She had not been well for a few days; had meant to see her physician. But in the rush of events enveloping her there had been no moment to think of mere bodily ills.
Now, dizzy, trembling, and faintly nauseated, she stood supporting her weight on a gilded chair, closing her eyes for a moment to let the swimming wretchedness pass.
It passed after a while, leaving her so utterly miserable that she leaned over and rang for a maid.
"Order the car—the Sphex limousine," she said. "And bring me my hat and furs."