Then she fidgeted herself into a most horrible temper, and sat deliberately down before the grate in a capacious dressing-chair, determined to wait until the girl came, and deliver a most severe and stately reprimand, the exact words of which she had already determined upon.

The lady, sitting thus with her feet on the fender, her hands comfortably clasping the big arms of the dressing chair, and her head lolling rather ungracefully over its back, fell into slumber.

If Mrs. John Arthur had made a midnight appointment with Lucifer, she would have fortified herself for the encounter by making a "stunning"

toilet. It was one of her fixed principles--she had fixed principles--never to permit friend or foe of the male persuasion to gaze upon her charms when they would show at a disadvantage. So when she entered the arbor, which was suffused with a soft moonlight glow from a heavily-shaded lamp, for the arbor stood among dense shrubbery, and but for this lamp would have been in Egyptian darkness, she was indeed a personification of loveliness.

Ungracious as was his mood, Percy would not have been a beauty-adoring mortal if he had not paid involuntary tribute to the charms of the woman who was his bitterest foe. Gazing down upon her a moment, he said in his soft legato:

"I am almost angry at you for being so beautiful, after having taken yourself to other lovers, _Ma belle_."

The woman smiled triumphantly, as she threw herself into an easy chair, and said in her softest, sweetest tone: "And did you expect me to go mourning for you all these years, sir?"

"I don't think you were ever the woman to do that;" dropping lazily into a rustic seat near her. "May I smoke?"

Cora nodded.

"Are you sure we are quite safe here?" looking about him. "Somehow, I am suspicious of that sharp French maid."

"Quite sure," nodding again. "Mr. Arthur was in bed before I came out; Miss Arthur was ordering up a lunch to her room, and the French maid must needs be in attendance for an hour or more; and besides, I know she is not at all dangerous. None of the other servants ever have occasion to come here, and most of them are in bed by now."

"So your charming sister-in-law eats, does she? After parting from me, too; ugh!"

"Eats? I should think so," laughing softly; "in her own room, when her stays are not too tight."

"Spare me!"

He held up both hands in mock deprecation; then, dropping his bantering tone, said, as he puffed at his cigar:

"But now to business. You did not come out here in such bewitching toilet to tell me that my charmer eats?"

"Hardly," with a pretty shrug.

"For what, then?"

"To come to an understanding with you," coolly.

"As how?" in the same tone.

"As to our future standing with each other."

"I thought that was settled to-day?"

"Did you? I don't think it was settled."

"Well, what remains, fair Alice?"

"Will you drop that name?"

"For the present, yes; but with reluctance."

"Oh, certainly!" bitterly. "Now, what are we to be henceforth?"

"Friends, of course," knocking the ashes off his cigar.

"You and I may be allies; we can never be friends," she said, scornfully.

"Don't trouble yourself to be insulting, Mrs.--a--Arthur."

"Then don't make me remember how I have hated you!"

"Have you really hated me? How singular."

"Very!" sarcastically; then: "If you don't drop that disagreeable tone we shall quarrel. I wish to know what you want with Ellen Arthur."

"Shade of my grandmother! If you don't drop that disagreeable name, I shall expire. Haven't I had enough of her for one day? Alice, I know revenge is sweet, but spare me."

"Bother! I must talk about her, else how can we settle anything? Do you suppose I am going to allow that sweet girl to be deceived?" This with mock indignation.

"Oh, no; certainly not! Well, if I must, I must. First, then--"

"First, what position do you intend to take towards me?"

"That depends upon yourself."

"On conditions?"

"On conditions."

"Name them."

"I am to be received as an honored guest whenever I shall choose to visit Oakley."

"Well."

"Next, you are to do all in your power to further my suit with Miss--you know."

"That's an easy task."

"Lastly, you are to promise me not, now or at any future time, to declare to any one aught you may know that might be to my disadvantage."

"That is to say, I am not to tell Ellen Arthur, or others, that you have two wives--"

"Softly; one, my dear, _one_. Mrs. Percy Jordan, number one, is dead; you alone are left. You see, Alice, my dear, the thing is reversed.

You have two husbands now, while I--"

"Will have two wives as soon as you can get them!"