Involuntarily I clinched my teeth and took a step forward, with flashing eyes; but just then she snatched up the miserable silver thing and thrust it into the handbag, at the same time looking over her shoulder at me with suddenly flaming cheeks.
I said nothing, but a demon had sprung up in my heart. Whose picture was this which she was so eager to keep where she could look upon it the last thing before retiring and the first thing upon arising?
Well, what did it matter to me? What reason had I to be jealous—I who had fled from the sight of her after settling half of my fortune on her, and who had written that henceforth, since I was unable to make her happy, we would be as dead to each other?
I was a fool to care.
Of course I summoned those forces which I had been so carefully marshaling these two years back, and whipped my traitor heart into line, but it was a close shave, for I would have given much for a sight of that picture, in order to discover what my successor looked like.
“I am ready,” she said, quietly.
The color had left her cheeks as suddenly as it flamed there, and I could easily see she was annoyed at something—perhaps because I dared presume to be impertinently curious regarding her private affairs.
Well, I deserved it all, for had I not given her to understand she could never more be other than a stranger to me?
What a fool I had been.
Perhaps there might have been some way in which I could have convinced her of my worthiness without desertion; but what wonders we might perform if our foresight only equaled the result of our bitter experience.