"You can send me a hundred copies of the issue," said Sir Francis, taking up his hat to go. "I suppose you're not afraid of an action for libel?"
Mr. Snawley-Grubbs laughed--nay, he roared,--the idea seemed so exquisitely suited to his sense of humor.
"Afraid? My dear fellow, there's nothing I should like better! It would establish the Snake, and make my fortune! I would even go to prison with pleasure. Prison, for a first-class misdemeanant, as I should most probably be termed, is perfectly endurable." He laughed again, and escorted Sir Francis to the street-door, where he shook hands heartily. "You are sure you won't come upstairs and join us? No? Ah, I see you have a cab waiting. Good-night, good-night!"
And the Snawley-Grubbs door being closed upon him, Sir Francis re-entered his cab, and was driven straight to his bachelor lodgings in Piccadilly. He was in a better humor with himself now,--though he was still angrily conscious of a smart throbbing across the eyes, where Thelma's ringed hand had struck him. He found a brief note from Lady Winsleigh awaiting him. It ran as follows:-"You're playing a losing game this time,--she will believe nothing without proofs--and even then it will be difficult. You had better drop the pursuit, I fancy. For once a woman's reputation will escape you!"
He smiled bitterly as he read these last words.
"Not while a society paper exists!" he said to himself. "As long as there are editors willing to accept the word of a responsible man of position, for any report, the chastest Diana that ever lived shall not escape calumny! She wants proofs, does she? She shall have them--by Jove! she shall!"
And instead of going to bed, he went off to a bijou villa in St. John's Wood,--an elegantly appointed little place, which he rented and maintained,--and where the popular personage known as Violet Vere, basked in the very lap of luxury.
Meanwhile, Thelma paced up and down her own boudoir, into which she had escaped through the sliding panel which had baffled her admirer. Her whole frame trembled as she thought of the indignity to which she had been subjected during her brief unconsciousness,--her face burned with bitter shame,--she felt as if she were somehow poisonously infected by those hateful kisses of Lennox,--all her womanly and wifely instincts were outraged. Her first impulse was to tell her husband everything the instant he returned. It was she who had rung the bell which had startled Sir Francis, and she was surprised that her summons was not answered. She rang again, and Britta appeared.