Part 8 (2/2)
Edith impulsively started forward, shouted ”Whoa!” to the horses, and lifted the reins. The animals stopped immediately, and in a moment a lovely face was thrust from the carriage window, and a sweet voice asked,
”Thomas, what is the matter?--what has happened?”
She stepped from the carriage and was soon informed of the accident, and its probable cause. She was a tall, elegantly-formed woman, of perhaps forty-three years, with large, dark brown eyes and rich brown hair. Her skin was fair and flawless, as that of a girl of twenty, with a delicate flush upon her cheeks, and Edith thought her face the most beautiful she had ever seen.
A policeman presently appeared upon the scene, and the lady requested him to secure some competent person who would drive the vehicle to its stable. To secure attention to this request, she gave the policeman a bank note, and named the location of the stable. She then said to the coachman, who was engaged in brus.h.i.+ng the dust from his clothing:
”Thomas, you may come to me at nine o'clock to-morrow morning--without the carriage.”
As the coachman staggered off, the lady turned to Edith, thanked her for the service she had performed, and gave her a card bearing a name and address--”Mrs. I. G. Stewart, Copley Square Hotel, Boston, Ma.s.s.”
At the solicitation of the lady, Edith gave her name, and stated that she was the companion to Mrs. Gerald G.o.ddard, of Commonwealth avenue.
This information caused Mrs. Stewart to turn pale, and otherwise manifest a strange agitation. She quickly recovered, however, and stated:
”Ah! I was introduced to Mrs. G.o.ddard's brother, Monsieur Correlli, a few evenings ago, but I have never had the pleasure of meeting Mrs.
G.o.ddard. Now it is time for me to go, and I shall have to take an electric car to get back to my hotel. Again let me thank you for your timely service. I hope you and I will meet again some time; and, dear, if you should ever need a friend, do not fail to come to me.
Good-afternoon.”
Shortly after the departure of Mrs. Stewart, as Edith was walking homeward, she was overtaken by Emil Correlli, who begged permission to attend her, as they were both bound for the same destination. It would have been rude to refuse, so Edith consented, although she would have preferred to go alone.
They had not advanced far before Edith became aware that they were followed by a woman, who kept parallel with them, on the opposite side of the street. Monsieur Correlli seemed unconscious of this fact, as he was apparently engrossed in the effort to entertain his companion with animated conversation. When they were within a few yards of Mrs.
G.o.ddard's residence, the woman suddenly darted across the avenue and placed herself directly in their path.
In an instant Emil Correlli seemed turned to stone, so motionless and rigid did he become. For a full minute his gaze was riveted upon the stranger, as if in horrible fascination.
”_Giulia!_” he breathed, at last, in a scarcely audible voice. ”_Le diable!_”
The woman had a veil over her face, but Edith could see that she was very handsome, with a warm, Southern kind of beauty, although it was of a rather coa.r.s.e type. She was evidently a foreigner, with brilliant black eyes, an olive complexion, scarlet lips and cheeks, and a wealth of purple-black hair, which was coiled in a ma.s.sive knot at the back of her head.
She was of medium height, with a plump but exquisitely proportioned figure, as was revealed by her closely-fitting garment of navy-blue velvet.
The moment Emil Correlli spoke her name, she burst pa.s.sionately forth, and began to address him in rapidly uttered sentences of some foreign language, which Edith could not understand.
It was not French, for she could converse in that tongue, and she knew it was not German. She therefore concluded it must be either Italian or Spanish.
As the girl talked, her eyes roved from the man's face to Edith's, with angry, jealous glances, while she gesticulated wildly with her hands, and her voice was fierce and intense with pa.s.sion.
She would not give Monsieur Correlli an opportunity to say one word, until she had exhausted her seemingly endless vocabulary; but he was as colorless as a piece of his own statuary, and a lurid, desperate light burned in his eyes--a gleam, which, if she had been less intent upon venting her own pa.s.sion, would have warned her that she was doing her cause, whatever it might be, more harm than good by the course she was adopting.
At last she paused in her tirade, simply because she lacked breath to go on, when Emil Correlli replied to her, in her own tongue, and with equal fluency; but in tones that were both stern and authoritative, while it was evident that he was excessively annoyed by her sudden and unexpected appearance there.
Finally, after another attempt upon the girl's part to carry her point, he stamped his foot imperatively, to emphasize some command, and, with a look which made her cringe like a whipped cur before him; when, shooting a glance of fire and hate at Edith, she turned away, with a crestfallen air, and went, dejectedly, down the street.
Edith would have been glad, and had tried, to escape from this scene, for after the first moment of surprise upon being so unceremoniously confronted by the beautiful stranger, she had stepped aside, ascended the steps, and rang the bell.
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