Chapter IX: Jealousy

“Talbot, where can I see you alone a moment? I am so anxious to speak to you privately. I hurried with my dressing purposely, so that I might have you to myself before the others come down!”

A snowy hand, sparkling with diamonds, fluttered down on Talbot Strangemore’s arm and a pair of seductive blue eyes looked up into his proud dark ones. An uneasy frown drew his brows together, and he mentally ejaculated:

“The devil!”

To-morrow evening had come, and with it had punctually appeared Mr. Strangemore’s self-invited guests. There were all in all three ladies and four gentlemen. Talbot and his aunt had received and welcomed them, and now all had gone to their rooms to dress for dinner. One indeed had finished her toilette and come down before the others to the elegant parlor where, as she had hoped and expected she found Talbot Strangemore alone.

She was a petite, flaxen-haired fairy with a milk-white skin, rosy cheeks, and large limpid blue eyes that usually wore a look of infantine guilelessness and confidence that impressed one with the idea that she was sixteen instead of six and twenty, her real age. She was as exquisitely pretty as a doll, and her dress of soft blue silk and creamy-hued lace, with ornaments of torquoise and pearls, enhanced her dainty charms.

But, lovely, winning, as she was, the frown between Talbot Strangemore’s eyes was a deep one as he looked down at her and answered:

“Excuse me, Sibyl, but there is no time for us to talk privately now. I shall have to remain in here to entertain my guests who will be coming down at any moment.”

She looked at him with a mutinous pout on her rich, red lips.

“I don’t believe you want to talk to me, there,” she said, “I thought you’d be just dying to see me again, but I see how it is--the girl-wife has rivalled me in your fickle heart already. Oh, Talbot, Talbot, I did not believe you could be so cruel to me!”

The pale, gold lashes began to glitter with the dew of impending tears.

“Do not make a scene, for Heaven’s sake, Sibyl,” he said, impatiently, “I don’t go in for hysterics, you know. Come into the conservatory and look at the flowers. If you must talk to me now, I suppose you can have an opportunity there.”

A gleam of triumph brightened her eyes as he drew her into the conservatory, that had a door opening from the parlor. She slipped her hand through his arm in a pretty, confiding fashion, and began to talk to him eagerly.

The parlor began to fill up quickly with the guests who strolled in one after another. Miss Drusilla and her niece entered, Nina in her pretty bride-like white again, with five rows of great, moon-white pearls shining around the slender column of her graceful throat. Some womanly longing to look as lovely as she could in the eyes of her rival had made her quite quiescent under Kitty’s loving hands this evening. The result was a lovely, snow-white maiden, whose own wine-dark eyes, golden hair, and girlish bloom, set off the whiteness of her robe admirably. She greeted the guests with graceful ease, although each one noted her single, quick, disappointed glance around the room.

One man whispered _sub rosa_ to the others:

“Strangemore has acted like a fool, dangling after that little coquette, while this beautiful creature was waiting for him at home!”

“We are all here now except Mr. Strangemore and Sibyl,” said Miss Mason. “Does any one know if Mrs. St. Alban is down yet?”

No one seemed to know, and Nina crossed the room to the conservatory, obeying an idle fancy for a rosebud. She stepped under the broad arch that led into it, and disappeared from view for a moment--only a moment, for then she came hurrying back with a handful of pink geraniums, snatched at random. Her face was as white as her dress, her dark eyes blazed with indignation. She looked at pretty Miss Mason, and said, in a trembling, incoherent voice:

“I--I think your friend is in there. I saw a lady with my husband.”

And the beautiful young face, all untutored in the art of hiding the emotions of the heart, betrayed its bitter, burning jealousy to all.

“He is giving her some flowers--we must have some, too!” both the ladies cried, and they rushed to the door of the conservatory.

Far down the flowery vista of sweetness, they saw Talbot Strangemore standing motionless, while Sibyl St. Alban leaned her fair head on his breast, weeping bitterly.

They turned back quickly as Nina had done, but they could not meet the dark eyes of the girl. They tried to talk of other things.

But that terrible Miss Drusilla watching them closely, said to herself grimly and with not very choice phraseology, that she “smelt a rat in the pantry,” and she immediately arose and plunged into the odorous green shadows of the conservatory.

She did not start and turn back as the others did. She walked straight on toward the beautiful siren who was laying her head on Talbot’s breast and sobbing, with bitter reproach and anger:

“You cannot mean it, Talbot, you would not be so cruel to your poor Sibyl!”

Miss Drusilla walked straight up to them, and Talbot lifted his head with a frightened start.

“Talbot,” said the grim spinster, “I hope your pretty young friend hasn’t heard any bad news that some of her friends are dead. She is certainly taking on as if she had! I expect some of her lady friends could comfort her better than you could!”

Sibyl St. Alban, the charming young widow, lifted her head from its resting place and flashed a steady glance into Miss Drusilla’s scornful eyes. From that moment the two women knew themselves as enemies.

“I expect Aunt Drusilla is right, Sibyl. Let us return to our friends,” Mr. Strangemore said in a short tone of displeasure, and he led her into the parlor, hoping devoutly that no one would observe the pink rims around her eyes which had shed such angry tears.

Too much annoyed himself to notice the _distrait_ looks of the others, Talbot led his fair enchantress across the room to where his unloved wife was sitting, Cameron hovering attentively by her side.

“Mrs. St. Alban, _my wife_,” he said, simply, but every ear in the room except Nina’s was struck by the tender pride that breathed in those two words “_my wife_.”

Nina arose and they bowed to each other. Sibyl St. Alban drew her breath hard when she took her first look at her rival.

There was a proud, fearless scorn and deep reproach in the dark eyes that met her own in one swift, quickly withdrawn glance.

Then dinner was announced, and every one breathed freer, as for a few moments, as Virgie Mason whispered to her partner at table, there had seemed to be suppressed thunder and lightning in the air.