to
her while she, Angela, was out in Blackwood waiting for him patiently.
It aroused on the instant all the fighting jealousy that was in her
breast; it was the same jealousy that had determined her once before to
hold him in spite of the plotting and scheming that appeared to her to
be going on about her. They should not have him--these nasty studio
superiorities--not any one of them, nor all of them combined, if they
were to unite and try to get him. They had treated her shamefully since
she had been in the East. They had almost uniformly ignored her. They
would come to see Eugene, of course, and now that he was famous they
could not be too nice to him, but as for her--well, they had no
particular use for her. Hadn't she seen it! Hadn't she watched the
critical, hypocritical, examining expressions in their eyes! She wasn't
smart enough! She wasn't literary enough or artistic enough. She knew as
much about life as they did and more--ten times as much; and yet because
she couldn't strut and pose and stare and talk in an affected voice they
thought themselves superior. And so did Eugene, the wretched creature!
Superior! The cheap, mean, nasty, selfish upstarts! Why, the majority of
them had nothing. Their clothes were mere rags and tags, when you came
to examine them closely--badly sewed, of poor material, merely slung
together, and yet they wore them with such a grand air! She would show
them. She would dress herself too, one of these days, when Eugene had
the means. She was doing it now--a great deal more than when she first
came, and she would do it a great deal more before long. The nasty,
mean, cheap, selfish, make-belief things. She would show them! O-oh! how
she hated them.

Now as she cried she also thought of the fact that Eugene could write
love letters to this horrible Christina Channing--one of the same kind,
no doubt; her letters showed it. O-oh! how she hated her! If she could
only get at her to poison her. And her sobs sounded much more of the
sorrow she felt than of the rage. She was helpless in a way and she knew
it. She did not dare to show him exactly what she felt. She was afraid
of him. He might possibly leave her. He really did not care for her
enough to stand everything from her--or did he? This doubt was the one
terrible, discouraging, annihilating feature of the whole thing--if he
only cared.

"I wish you wouldn't cry, Angela," said Eugene appealingly, after a
time. "It isn't as bad as you thin