"You are jumping at conclusions, dear," she said, with a careless
indulgence which made her hearer's jaws meet with a venomous click. "I
have intimated nothing, not even the possibility of your ever being
tempted by the arising of such a contingency. And yet, having had many
lovers--if the tales be true--you should be able to speak
authoritatively!"

If looks could have slain, the world would have been forever lost to
Grace Carter at that moment. It took Constance quite a time to control
herself sufficiently to avoid betraying her rage at this chit's insolent
assurance. When she did speak her words were sweetly vitriolic:

"One can imagine the shock Ellerslie's vanity will encounter when he
learns of that canard! Such things require so much explanation, too! I
am really sorry, dear, at your humiliating predicament. And what in the
name of Venus are you going to say in conciliation to Kenneth Douglass?"

Grace flinched pitifully at this double _touche_ of her adversary's keen
weapon, but her eyes glinted like burnished steel. The duel was to be _a
l'outrance_ now, and she put all her indignation and subtlety behind
her blow. The older woman had noted with a malicious pleasure a dull
flushing of the fair face and throat but had wrongly ascribed its cause.
The battle ground was her bedchamber, and over on a chair, carelessly
thrown, lay a man's light topcoat and a pair of gloves many sizes too
large for Constance's dainty hands! With a world of scornful meaning the
girl looked at the chair, and the eyes of the woman following the
direction of that glance, grew black with confusion.

"I think he has been sufficiently appealed to in the name of your patron
goddess," she said, icily, "and as for Lord Ellerslie, I rejected his
proposal even before I had learned of his relations with the author of
that despicable lie. As for Mr. Douglass--"

The words died on her tongue as the door, evidently communicating with
another room adjoining, suddenly opened and a well-known voice said
familiarly:

"Did I leave my coat and gloves in here last night, Connie? There would
be the devil to pay if the chambermaid--!"

Standing there in his shirt sleeves, Ken Douglass was, for the first
time in his reckless life, at a disadvantage too great for even his
conceded adroitness to overcome. In a coma of stupefaction, with horror
and shame written all over his gray-white face, he stood staring at the
pale, haughty face so relentlessly direc