And on that Saturday evening, he walked into her
sitting-room with a pale and composed face.
She was seated upon the sofa and arranged with every care, and was
looking triumphantly beautiful as she smoked a cigarette. Her fine eyes
had in them all the mocking of the fiend as she greeted him lazily.
"How are you, John?" she said casually--and puffed rings of smoke,
curling up her red lips to do so in a manner that, John Derringham was
unpleasantly aware, he would once have found attractive, but that now
only filled him with disgust.
"I am well," he said, "thank you,--better for the change and the sight
of some most interesting things."
"And I, also," she responded with provoking glances from under her lids,
"am better--for the change! I have seen--a man, since which I seem to be
able the better to value your love!"
And she leaned back and laughed with rasping mockery, which galled his
ears--although for some strange reason she could no longer gall his
soul. He felt calm and blandly indifferent to her, like someone acting
in a dream.
"I am glad you were, and are, amused," he said.
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