A shadow of disgust passed over his handsome face.  Van Ness had a fastidious taste.  Her melodramatic poses had been familiar to him for years:  they always had annoyed and bored him.

“What is it that brings you here?  A woman?”

He hesitated a moment:  “Yes.”

“This yellow-haired girl?  You mean to marry her?”

“I may marry her,” cautiously.

Their eyes met.  “I did not think you would push me so far,” she said thoughtfully.

“It is to your interest not to interfere.  You are mad, Charlotte.  But you never lose sight of the dirty dollar in your madness.”

“That is for Ted’s sake,” quietly.  “I dislike that girl.  She’s so damnably clean!  She’s of the sort that would walk straight on and trample me under foot like a slug if she knew what I was.  I owe her an old grudge, too.  But that’s nothing,” laughing good-humoredly.  “It was the most ridiculous scene!  But it lost me a year’s income.  She nearly recognized me to-day.  On the whole, I’ll not interfere.  Marry her.  She deserves just such a punishment.  By the way, there is my card.  You can send the back payments that are due, to-morrow.”

Van Ness received the card and command with a smile and bow, meant for the bystanders:  “Of course, Charlotte, you understand that these payments must soon stop.  I shall rid myself of any legal claims you have upon me before marrying another woman.”

“Oh, I’ve no doubt you’ll walk strictly according to law!  You will not run the risk of a lawsuit, much less prosecution, even for Miss Swendon.  You will have no trouble in gaining your freedom from me,” shrilly.

“None whatever,” stripping the leaves from a willow wand.  She left him without a word, going to the house.

Mrs. Wilde had just summoned her carriage.  “Where is the princess?” looking lazily around.

“Is Madame Trebizoff a guest in your house?” asked Jane suddenly.

“Yes.”

“I will call her.  I have something to say to her.”

She went to meet her with the grave motherly firmness with which she would have gone to give a scolding to black Buff or a lazy chambermaid.  The princess, crossing the grass, slender, dark, sparkling, had no doubt of her own smouldering passionate hate against her.  It was the proper thing for Hagar to hate Sarah.  Life was thin and insipid without great remorses, revenges, loves.  The poor little creature was always aiming at them, and falling short.  She was wondering now why Jane wore no jewelry.  “Not an earring!  Not a hoop on her finger!  If I had her money!” glancing down at the blaze of rubies on her breast.

They met under a clump of lilacs.

“Stop one moment,” said Jane, looking down at her not unkindly.  “You must not let this go too far, you know.”

“What do you mean?” The princess fixed her eye upon her, with a somewhat snaky light in it.  Indeed, when she assumed that attitude toward Van Ness or any other man she could frighten and hold him at bay as if she had been a cobra about to strike.  But the lithe dark body, the vivid color, the beady eye only reminded Jane oddly of a darting little lizard, and tempted her to laugh.