You spoke like a
brave and a just friend to him to-day; are you willing to act as such
to-night? You have come here strangely, rudely, without pretext or
apology; but I think better of you than you would allow me to do, if I
judged only from the surface. I believe that you have loyalty, as I know
that you have courage."
Cigarette set her teeth hard.
"What of that?"
"This of it. That one who has them will never cherish malice
unjustifiably, or fail to fulfill a trust."
Cigarette's clear, brown skin grew very red.
"That is true," she muttered reluctantly. Her better nature was growing
uppermost, though she strove hard to keep the evil one predominant.
"Then you will cease to feel hatred toward me for so senseless a reason
as that I belong to an aristocracy that offends you; and you will remain
silent on what I tell you concerning the one whom you know as Louis
Victor?"
Cigarette nodded assent; the sullen fire-glow still burned in her eyes,
but she succumbed to the resistless influence which the serenity, the
patience, and the dignity of this woman had over her. She was studying
Venetia Corona all this while with the keen, rapid perceptions of
envy and of jealousy; studying her features, her form, her dress,
her attitude, all the many various and intangible marks of birth and
breeding which were so new to her, and which made her rival seem so
strange, so dazzling, so marvelous a sorceress to her; and all the
while the sense of her own inferiority, her own worthlessness, her own
boldness, her own debasement was growing upon her, eating, sharply into
the metal of her vanity and her pride, humiliating her unbearably, yet
making her heart ache with a sad, pathetic pity for herself.
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