“I’m prepared to conquer or to die,” she said merrily; and going to a large white box on the bed, she opened it and dangled in the air a gorgeous evening gown of silver gauze shot with green.  “This cost me a thousand dollars,” she commented in the hard, business-like tones Laura had begun to dread.  “I was keeping it for the ball next week, but there’s no call like the call of an emergency.  The horrid creature he fancies will be there,” she added, surveying her exquisite armful with an admiring, unhappy glance, “and it will be war to the death between us, if it costs him every cent he has.”  She fell thoughtfully silent, to break out at the end of a minute or two with a remark which had the value of an imparted confidence:  “She—­I mean the creature—­wore one something like it, only not nearly so handsome—­last night—­and it made her look frightfully gone off—­even Perry noticed it.”

Spreading the gown carefully upon the bed, she went to the mirror and regarded herself with passionate scrutiny.

“Will you wait and see me dress?” she asked; “Annette has my cold bath ready.  I must have a colour, but I shan’t be a minute in the tub.”

“Do you mean that you are really going out to-night?” asked Laura, remembering the despairing note of a few hours ago.

Gerty nodded.  “To a dinner and a dance.  Do you think that I will play the neglected wife?”

A glow had sprung to her eyes that was like the animation with which an intrepid hunter might depart upon a desperate chase—­and through all her elaborate toilette—­the massaging of her face, the arranging of her hair, the perfuming of her beautiful neck and arms—­she chatted gayly in the same flippant yet nervous voice.  When at last the maid had withdrawn again, Gerty, pausing before Laura in a shimmer of silver gauze that reminded one of a faintly scented moonlight, bent over and touched her cheek with feverish lips.

“It is war to the knife,” she laughed; and the peculiar radiance of colour, which gave her beauty a character that was almost violent, made her at the moment appear triumphant, exultant, barbaric.  To Laura she had never seemed more beautiful nor more unhappy.  Then suddenly her manner underwent a curious change, and her accustomed mask—­the smiling surface of a woman of the world—­settled as if by magic upon her face.  Perry Bridewell was at the door, and she opened it for him with an unconcern at which Laura wondered.

“Come in if you want to,” she said coolly, “Laura doesn’t mind.”

She drew back into the middle of the room, fastening her glove with insolent indifference, while his startled gaze hung upon her in an amazement he lacked the mental readiness to hide.

“By Jove, are you going out?” he asked.  “I thought you were downright ill and I was about to call up the doctor.  I’m jolly glad—­I declare I am,” he added humbly.

From the sincere anxiety in his voice, Laura surmised at once that Gerty’s exasperation had preceded by some hours her cooler judgment.  He looked as uncomfortable as it was possible for a man of his optimistic habit of mind to feel, and an evident humiliation was traced upon his countenance as if by several hasty touches of a crayon pencil.