Page:It Never Did Run Smooth.djvu/88

84 "Yes, a blow, and in your presence, my queen!" muttered the Cuban, his sallow cheek glowing duskily, and the lovelight of his eyes deepening to a lurid glow.

"Hilda, you love me, or you would not resent so bitterly an insult to me."

"Can a proud woman sit still, and see her betrothed husband struck, like a dog, and not resent it?" demanded Hilda, in a constrained voice, while, even through her mask, Violeto caught the deadly gleam of her great, gray «yes, and felt his cheek scorched with the fever of her breath. A sort of terror, a vague doubt, pierced, icily, through the fervor of his love. How bitterly she hated Trecothick! Could such hate be purely the product of her very mild love for himself? Was it not more like the deadily poison, bred of a slighted affection? Had she really cared for the American, and had he refused her love? Or had he won it, and enjoyed it, and wearied of it? Starting from his chair, he hurriedly left the box.

At the same moment, a figure, disguised in domino hood and mask, so effectually that one could not, at once, determine either its sex or age, left a box, nearly opposite to Mrs. Waterston's, and descended the stairs leading to the lobby on that side of the house, just as Pampalona did the same upon his own side. At the foot of the stairs, the domino waited for a moment to make sure of the Cuban's intentions, and as the latter listlessly wandered out of doors, he made an almost imperceptible signal to a stout negro, waiting among other servants and officials, who immediately, but very quietly, came to his side.

"The American does not come, Brom," muttered Senor Valdez.

"Not yet, senor. I would have come to tell you, if he bad entered."