"I loathe it!" he returned. "I wish to God I could never hear the name mentioned again. I wish to God I had never seen the place!"
There had been a lull in the conversation, and the words, low as they were spoken, were heard from one end of the table to the other. Carlita glanced up. A ghastly whiteness overspread her countenance. For a moment it seemed to Jessica that she was going to faint, but young Beresford handed her a glass of champagne which she drained before taking it from her lips.
Jessica's small teeth set angrily.
"If she believes him to be guilty," she muttered, mentally, "why does this new evidence of his guilt upset her like this? Curse her! She thinks she can deceive me; but she shall see—she shall see!"
But she only smiled above her wrath, and turned again to Pierrepont.
"How you are changing from the indifferent, nonchalant man you used to be, whom nothing could arouse from the even tenor of his way. There are absolutely traces of passion in your speech nowadays."
He bestowed a smile upon her which sent the blood tingling through her veins, and said in the old drawling, indolent way:
"There have always been traces of passion in my nature."
It was just such a speech as in the old days had convinced her, without further declaration from him, that he loved her; and as memory returned of those times, she was forced to bite her lip to keep the angry, bitter tears from her eyes. She saw now how little there had ever been in it, saw how little he had ever really cared, and a fierce hatred of him leaped to life in her breast, a hatred that was all the more savage because its very essence and flame was the wild, passionate love for him which she had not the least power to control.
"What frauds you men are!" she exclaimed, forcing herself to speak lightly, though her heart still ached poignantly. "There is so little in your words and so much in your manner of saying them. No wonder you break our hearts, and then still your conscience by making yourselves believe that you were not in fault, that you had said nothing by which your honors were compromised."