rs,
which only a vigorous hate had kept going. Marked with the
characteristics of the cat, velvety to eye and touch, insolent and
elusive in her glance, undisciplined, she could act a part for a time.
To Horace Endicott she had played the role of a child of light, an elf,
a goddess, for which nature had dressed her with golden hair, melting
eyes of celestial blue, and exquisite form.

The years had brought out the animal in her. She found it more and more
difficult to repress the spite, rage, hatred, against Horace and fate,
which consumed her within, and violated the external beauty with unholy
touches, wrinkles, grimaces, tricks of sneering, distortions of rage.
Her dreams of hatred had only one scene: a tiger in her own form rending
the body of the man who had discovered and punished her with a power
like omnipotence; rending him but not killing him, leaving his heart to
beat and his face unmarked, that he might feel his agony and show it.

"If _you_ had sent me the telegram," she remarked to Curran, "I would
not have come. But this dear Colette, she is to be my good angel and
lead me to success, aren't you, little devil? Ever since she took up the
matter I have had my beautiful dreams once more, oh, such thrilling
dreams! Like the novels of Eugene Sue, just splendid. Well, why don't
you speak?"

He pointed to Edith with a gesture of submission. She was hugging the
little boy before the nurse took him away, teasing him into baby talk,
kissing him decorously but lavishly, as if she could not get enough of
him.

"He's not to speak until asked," she cried.

"And then only say what she thinks," he added.

"La! are you fighting over it already? That's not a good sign."

With a final embrace which brought a howl from young Horace, Edith gave
the boy to the nurse and began her story of finding Horace Endicott in
the son of Anne Dillon. She acted the story, admirably keeping back the
points which would have grated on Sonia's instincts, or rather
expectations. The lady, impressed, evidently felt a lack of something
when Curran refused his interest and his concurrence to the description.

"What do you wish me to do?" said she.

"To see this Dillon and to study him, as one would a problem. The man's
been playing this part, living it indeed, nearly five years. Can any one
expect that the first glance will pierce his disguise? He must be
watched and studied for days, and if that fetches nothing, then you must
meet him