She was
angry, and she knew why, and still more angry because upon herself
lay the blame! Not that she blamed herself for having rejected Le
Gardeur: she had done that deliberately and for a price; but the
price was not yet paid, and she had, sometimes, qualms of doubt
whether it would ever be paid!
She who had had her own way with all men, now encountered a man who
spoke and looked like one who had had his own way with all women,
and who meant to have his own way with her!
She gazed often upon the face of Bigot, and the more she looked the
more inscrutable it appeared to her. She tried to sound the depths
of his thoughts, but her inquiry was like the dropping of a stone
into the bottomless pit of that deep cavern of the dark and bloody
ground talked of by adventurous voyageurs from the Far West.
That Bigot admired her beyond all other women at the ball, was
visible enough from the marked attention which he lavished upon her
and the courtly flatteries that flowed like honey from his lips.
She also read her preeminence in his favor from the jealous eyes of
a host of rivals who watched her every movement.
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