Theodora had not spoken for a moment after his first speech. It made her
heart beat too fast.
"I have been watching you all through dinner," he continued, with only a
little pause. "You look immensely beautiful to-night, and those two told
you so, I suppose."
"Perhaps they did!" she said. This was her first gentle essay at
fencing. She would try to be as the rest were, gay and full of badinage.
"And you liked it?" with resentment.
"Of course I did; you see, I never have heard any of these nice things
much. Josiah has always been too ill to go out, and when I was a girl I
never saw any people who knew how to say them."
She had turned to look at him as she said this, and his eyes spoke a
number of things to her. They were passionate, and resentful, and
jealous, and full of something disturbing. Thrills ran through poor
Theodora.
His eyes had been capable of looking most of these things before to
other women, when he had not meant any of them, but she did not know
that.
"Well," he said, "they had better not return or recommence their
compliments, because I am not in the mood to be polite to them
to-night."
"What is your mood?" asked Theodora, and then felt a little frightened
at her own daring.
"My mood is one of unrest--I would like to be away alone with you, where
we could talk in peace," and he leaned over her so that his lips were
fairly close to her ear. "These people jar upon me. I would like to be
sitting in the garden at Amalfi, or in a gondola in Venice, and I want
to talk about all your beautiful thoughts. You are a new white flower
for me, as different as an angel from the other women in the world."
"Am I?" said she, in her tender tones. "I would wish that you should
always keep that good thought of me. We shall soon go our different
ways. Josiah has decided to leave next week, and we are not likely to
meet in England."
"Yes, we are likely to meet--I will arrange it," he said.
There was nothing hesitating about Hector Bracondale--his way with women
had always been masterful--and this quality, when mixed with a sudden
bending to their desires, was peculiarly attractive. To-night he was
drifting--drifting into a current which might carry him beyond his
control.