"If she _didn't_ get it--well, there
were fireworks!"--smiling. "Once, I remember, Eliot crossed her wishes over
something and she flew into a perfect frenzy of temper. There was a small
Italian dagger lying on a table near, and she snatched it up and flung it
straight at him. It struck him just below one of his eyes; that's how he
came by that scar on his cheekbone. She might have blinded him," she added,
and for a moment there was a faint tremor in her voice.
"What a brute she must have been!" exclaimed Ann in horror.
"Yes," agreed Cara. "He was unlucky in his mother." After a pause she went
on: "And he was unlucky in the woman he loved. He wasn't at all well-off in
those days, and she threw him over--broke off the engagement and married a
very wealthy man instead."
Ann felt her heart contract.
"I suppose that's what makes him so bitter, then," she said in a low voice.
"Probably--he still cares for her."
"No." Cara shook her head. "Eliot Coventry isn't the sort of man to go on
caring for a woman who'd proved herself unworthy. I think--I think he'd
just wipe her clean out of his life."
"It would be what she deserved," asserted Ann rather fiercely.
"Yes, I suppose it would.
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