"Now," said she, panting, "you look me in the face and say that again."
"Excuse me; you punish me too severely for telling the truth."
"Well, I beg your pardon--there. Now tell me--this instant. Can't you
speak, man?" And her knuckles drummed the table.
"He is to be married in three weeks."
"Oh! Who to?"
"A young lady I love."
"Her name?"
"Miss Arabella Bruce."
"Where does she live?"
"Portman Square."
"I'll stop that marriage."
"How?" asked Richard, eagerly.
"I don't know; that I'll think over. But he shall not marry
her--never!"
Bassett sat and looked up with almost as much awe as complacency at the
fury he had evoked; for this woman was really at times a poetic
impersonation of that fiery passion she was so apt to indulge. She
stood before him, her cheek pale, her eyes glittering and roving
savagely, and her nostrils literally expanding, while her tall body
quivered with wrath, and her clinched knuckles pattered on the table.
"He shall not marry her. I'll kill him first!"
CHAPTER III.
RICHARD BASSETT eagerly offered his services to break off the obnoxious
match. But Miss Somerset was beginning to be mortified at having shown
so much passion before a stranger.
"What have you to do with it?" said she, sharply.
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