"You will find these cigarettes excellent. My husband"s taste in cigarettes is better than in many things. He prefers the Russian to the French."
Caspilier laughed loudly.
"That"s a slap at you, Tenise," he said.
"At me? Not so; she speaks of cigarettes, and I myself prefer the Russian, only they are so expensive."
A look of strange eagerness came into Valdoreme"s expressive face, softened by a touch of supplication. Her eyes were on her husband, but she said rapidly to the girl----"
"Stop a moment, mademoiselle. Do not light your cigarette until I give the word."
Then to her husband she spoke beseechingly in Russian, a language she had taught him in the early months of their marriage.
"Eugenio, Eugenio! Don"t you see the girl"s a fool? How can you care for her? She would be as happy with the first man she met in the street. I--I think only of you. Come back to me, Eugenio."
She leaned over the table towards him, and in her vehemence clasped his wrist. The girl watched them both with a smile. It reminded her of a scene in an opera she had heard once in a strange language. The prima donna had looked and pleaded like Valdoreme.
Caspilier shrugged his shoulders, but did not withdraw his wrist from her firm grasp.
"Why go over the whole weary ground again?" he said. "If it were not Tenise, it would be somebody else. I was never meant for a constant husband, Val. I understood from Lacour that we were to have no more of this nonsense."
She slowly relaxed her hold on his unresisting wrist. The old, hard, tragic look came into her face as she drew a deep breath. The fire in the depths of her amber eyes rekindled, as the softness went out of them.
"You may light your cigarette now, mademoiselle," she said almost in a whisper to Tenise.
"I swear I could light mine in your eyes, Val.," cried her husband.
"You would make a name for yourself on the stage. I will write a tragedy for you, and we will----"
Tenise struck the match. A simultaneous flash of lightning and clap of thunder filled the room. The gla.s.s in the window fell clattering into the street. Valdoreme was standing with her back against the door.
Tenise, fluttering her helpless little hands before her, tottered shrieking to the broken window. Caspilier, staggering panting to his feet, gasped--
"You Russian devil! The key, the key!"
He tried to clutch her throat, but she pushed him back.
"Go to your Frenchwoman. She"s calling for help."
Tenise sank by the window, one burning arm over the sill, and was silent. Caspilier, mechanically beating back the fire from his shaking head, whimpering and sobbing, fell against the table, and then went headlong on the floor.
Valdoreme, a pillar, of fire, swaying gently to and fro before the door, whispered in a voice of agony--
"Oh, Eugene, Eugene!" and flung herself like a flaming angel--or fiend --on the prostrate form of the man.