Henrietta winced, and her face turned scarlet. And now there was no question of the hostility between them. Bess’s dark, smiling face was insolence itself.
“What? Wasn’t he that?” the gipsy girl continued. “If he was not”—with a coarse look—“what do you want with him?”
Silenced for the moment by the other’s taunt, Henrietta now found her voice.
“I wish to see him,” she said. “That is enough for you.”
“Oh, is it?” Bess replied. She had taken her hand from the key and moved a pace or two into the room, so as to confront her rival at close quarters. “That’s my affair! I fancy you will have to tell me a good deal more before you do see him.”
“Why?”
“Oh, why?” mimicking her rudely. “Why? Because——”
“What are you to him?”
“What you were!” Bess answered.
Henrietta’s face flamed anew. But the insult no longer found her unprepared. She saw that she was in the presence of a woman dangerous and reckless; and one who considered her a rival. On the hearth crouched and gibbered that fearful old man. The door was locked—the action had not been lost on her; and no living being, no one outside that door, knew that she was here.