It was this instinct of the proprieties that had revived in her suddenly
at the door of the old sitting-room.
Then a new phase of the situation flashed upon her. It was hard for her
vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary and final. What if
that hateful woman had lured him away by some trick or artfully designed
message? She was capable of such meanness to insure the fulfillment of
her prophecy. Or, more dreadful thought, what if she had some hold on
his affections--she had said that he had pursued her; or, more infamous
still, there were some secret understanding between them, and that
she--Mrs. Barker--was the dupe of them both! What was she doing in the
hotel at such a moment? What was her story of going to Hymettus but a
lie as transparent as her own? The tortures of jealousy, which is as
often the incentive as it is the result of passion, began to rack her.
She had probably yet known no real passion for this man; but with the
thought of his abandoning her, and the conception of his faithlessness,
came the wish to hold and keep him that was dangerously near it. What
if he were even then in that room, the room where she had said she would
not stay to be insulted, and they, thus secured against her intrusion,
were laughing at her now? She half rose at the thought, but a sound of
a horse's hoofs in the stable-yard arrested her. She ran to the window
which gave upon it, and, crouching down beside it, listened eagerly.
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