cousin's
wrath, "that you had better drop your silly affectations and spoiled
ways while here."

"Really!" burst out Bessie again, her face flushing with growing
indignation.

"I do," he returned placidly, "for somehow, the people about here don't
seem to appreciate such things."

"I can readily believe it," answered Blanch with a contemptuous laugh
and hauteur of manner that were almost insulting. "I don't wonder you
feel uneasy on our account considering that we have never enjoyed the
advantages their social standards offer. We trust, however, for the sake
of old friendship, that you will overlook our shortcomings. A lesson in
manners might not be lost on us," she added with a withering glance and
tone that would have reduced any other man to a sere and yellow leaf.

She paused, her delicately gloved hand resting lightly on the handle of
her sunshade on which she leaned, throwing the graceful outline of her
tall slender figure into clear relief against the green background of
trees and shrubs. A strange light came into her beautiful blue eyes,
softening the expression of her face; a face that had been the hope and
despair of many a man; a face that was not alone beautiful but alive and
interesting; a face into which all men longed to gaze and once seen
could never be forgotten.

Only one man had ever resisted the power and fascination of that face;
the man whom she had flung from her in an ungovernable fit of passion;
the man whom she either had come to claim as her own again, or to
humiliate as he had humiliated her. Who could guess the real motive that
prompted her to humble her pride so far as to follow him? Was it love or
hatred? Who could say? Her delicate, coral lips curled with just the
suggestion of a sneer as she raised her eyes to his again and said in a
tone of contempt: "So this is the place where your wild woman lives--"
but the words died on her lips. Her head came up with a jerk and her
figure suddenly straightened and stiffened as her gaze became riveted on
the face of Chiquita who stood just opposite on the veranda lightly
poised with one foot on the steps.

It would have been interesting to have read the thoughts of these two
women as they stood silently confronting one another, each taking the
measure of the other.

The contrast between the two could not have been more striking. The
soft, delicate, well-groomed figure of Blanch, the accomplished woman of
the world, with eyes intoxicating as