las had the pleasure of watching him as he stood talking
to one of the elderly ladies and looking on.

Silas's rabbit trap was in reality a very simple affair, it was a plan to
pick a quarrel with Richard through Frances, if possible; to make the
imperturbable Pinckney angry, knowing well how easily an angry man can be
induced to make a fool of himself. To keep cool and let Richard do the
shouting.

Unfortunately for Silas, the sight of Phyl in all her beauty had raised
his temperature far above the point of coolness. There were moments when
he was dancing, when he could have flung Frances aside, torn Phyl from the
arms of her partner and made off with her through the open window.

This dance was a deadly business for him. It was the one thing needed to
cap and complete the strange fascination this girl exercised upon his
mind, his imagination, his body. It was only now that he realised that
nothing else at all mattered in the world, it was only now that he
determined to have her or die.

Silas was of the type that kills under passion, the type that, unable to
have, destroys.

Preparing a trap for another, he himself had walked into a trap
constructed by the devil, stronger than steel.

Yet he never once approached or tried to speak to Phyl. He fed on her at a
distance. Fleeting glimpses of the curves of her figure, the Titian red of
her hair, the face that to-night might have turned a saint from his vows,
were snatched by him and devoured. He would not have danced with her if he
could. To take her in his arms would have meant covering her face with
kisses. Nor did he feel the least anger against the men with whom she
danced. All that was a sham and an unreality, they were shadows. He and
Phyl were the only real persons in that room.

Later on in the evening, Richard Pinckney, tired with the lights and the
noise, took a stroll in the garden.

The garden was lit here and there with fairy lamps and there were coigns
of shadow where couples were sitting out chatting and enjoying the beauty
of the night.

The moon was nearing the full and her light cut the tree shadows
distinctly on the paths. Passing a seat occupied by one of the sitting out
couples, Pinckney noticed the woman's fan which her partner was playing
with; it was his own gift to Frances Rhett. The man was Silas Grangerson
and the woman was Frances. They were talking, but as he passed them their
voices ceased.

He felt their eyes upon him, then, when