Page:Wanda, by Ouida.djvu/27

18 with the artists who had decorated her house; she sent for him without ceremony, and, with insistence, made him ride with her, drive with her, dance with her, made him také her to see certain diversions which were not whoUy fitted for a woman of her rank, and so rapidly and iniperceptibly gained ascendency over him that before making any engagement he involuntarilý paused to learn whether she had any claim on his time. It caused his wife the samé vague impatience which she had felt when Olga Brancka had persisted in going out with him on hunting excursions at horne. But she thrust away her observation of it as unworthy of her.

' If she tire him,' she thonght, ' he will Tery soon put her aside.'

But he did not do so.

Once she said to him, with a httle irony, ' You do not dislike Olga so very múch now ? * and to her surprise he coloured and answered quickly, ' 1 am not súre that I do not hate her/

'She certainly does not hate you/ said Wanda, a httle contemptuously.

' Who knows ? ' he said gloomily ; * who could e ver be súre of anything with a woman like that ? '