say, that
Telfer had gone clean mad. "Refused you--jilted you--what is it?"

"Refused me! I should like to see myself giving her the chance," said
the Major, with intense scorn. "No but she's done what I'd never
forgive--tried to cozen the poor old governor into marrying her. She's
no money, you know, and no home of her own; but, for all that, for a
girl of twenty to try and hook an old man of seventy-five, to cheat him
into the idea that he's made a conquest, and chisel him into the belief
that she's in love with him--faugh! the very idea disgusts one. What
sort of a wife would a woman make who could act such a lie?"

As he spoke, a form swept past him, and a beautiful face full of scorn
and passion gleamed on him through the _demi-lumiere_.

"By Jove! you've done it now, Telfer," said Walsham. "She was behind us,
I bet you, gathering those roses; her hands are full of them, and she
took that means of showing us she was within earshot. You _have_ set
your foot in it nicely, certainly."

"_Ce m'est bien egal_," said Telfer, haughtily. "If she hear what I say
of her, so much the better. It's the truth, that a young girl who'd sell
herself for money, as soon as she's got what she wanted will desert the
man who's given it to her; and I like my father too well to stand by and
see him made a fool of. The Tressillian and I are open foes now--we'll
see which wins."

"And a very fair foe you have, too," thought I, as I looked at Violet
that night as she stood in the window, a wreath of lilies on her
splendid hair, and her impassioned eyes lighting into joyous laughter as
she talked nonsense with Von Edenburgh.

"Isn't she first-rate style, in spite of your prejudice?" I said to
Telfer, who'd just finished a game at ecarte with De Tintiniac, one of
the best players in Europe. If the Major has any weakness, ecarte is one
of them. He just glanced across with a sarcastic smile.

"Well got up, of course; so are all actresses--on the stage."

Then he dropped his glass and went back to his cards, and seemed to
notice the splendid Tressillian not one whit more than he did her pup.

Whether his discourteous speeches had piqued Violet into showing off her
best paces, or whether it's a natural weakness of her sex to shine in
all times and places that they can, certain it was that I never saw the
Tressillian more brilliant and bewitching than she was that night.
Waltzing with Von Edenburgh, singing with me, talking fun with Fred,