"But my temptation is strong; shall I yield to
it, mademoiselle?"
Catrina smiled unwillingly.
"I would rather leave it to your own conscience," she said. "But I fail
to see the danger you anticipate."
"Then I accept, madame," said De Chauxville, with the engaging
frankness which ever had a false ring in it.
If the whole affair had been prearranged in Claude de Chauxville's mind,
it certainly succeeded more fully than is usually the case with human
schemes. If, on the other hand, this invitation was the result of
chance, Fortune had favored Claude de Chauxville beyond his deserts.
The little scene had played itself out before the eyes of Paul, who did
not want it; of Etta, who desired it; and of Catrina, who did not
exactly know what she wanted, with the precision of a stage-play
carefully rehearsed.
Claude de Chauxville had unscrupulously made use of feminine vanity with
all the skill that was his. A little glance toward Etta, as he accepted
the invitation, conveyed to her the fact that she was the object of his
clever little plot; that it was in order to be near her that he had
forced the Countess Lanovitch to invite him to Thors; and Etta, with all
her shrewdness, was promptly hoodwinked. Vanity is a handicap assigned
to clever women by Fate, who handicaps us all without appeal. De
Chauxville saw by a little flicker of the eyelids that he had not missed
his mark.
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