Lucia went up to bed immediately after he had gone. All evening up till that moment of meeting Charlie on the steps of Maud's house, she had been rather oppressed with the sense of the futility and repetition incident to life; but now all that was dismissed. For the last six months she had wondered what was to be the outcome of this very close friendship between Charlie and herself, and of late she had been inclined to class it among the futile repetitions. But to-night, in a single moment, all that had been changed; he would never look at her again with the frank eyes of an admiring comrade. He would look at her either not at all, or with the mute glance of love. She felt sure she was right about it; there was no mistaking it. And—it had happened just as she had meant.
She had dismissed her maid, for she wanted to think this out, and she could only do that in solitude. She was not in love with him, but she had led him on—led him on, putting forth all her power to charm, to intoxicate; and she had accomplished her plan. What did she mean to do next? Was she merely a flirt, one of those wretched, poisonous butterflies which four years ago she had so sincerely condemned in a talk she had had with Maud? Yes, she had condemned them then, but she was not so sure that she condemned them now. It was—it was such fun making the strong man bow himself just with a touch of her slender fingers. It was an exercise of power, an assertion of one's own individuality, which was the supreme pleasure in life. Perhaps she was just a flirt, then. Certainly she was not in love with him. But he had been intensely attractive to-night in his silence, his forced speech, his sudden shyness with her.
Then a sudden wave of repulsion at herself swept over her. She had done a hideous thing to-night, and for a moment she knew it was hideous. If only she had been in love with him, there might have been some excuse for her; it would, anyhow, have been under the stress of temptation that she had acted thus. But there was no such palliation for her. She had done it in cold blood, because she liked to exercise her power over men. And the very fact that it was Maud's husband to whom she had done this had, she knew, added a certain piquancy to it. It was a supremely devilish piece of work.
Yet even then she was not quite sure that, had fulfilment of a wish been granted her, she would have wished it undone, for she would then have to go back to the rather jaded appreciation of
