Always before this day Dicky had regarded with tolerant amusement the strange interest shown in me by the elderly man of mystery who had known my mother. But the magnificent chrysanthemums which Mr. Gordon had brought me, dozens of them, costing much more money than the ordinary conventional floral gift to one's hostess ought to cost, had roused his always smouldering jealousy to an unreasoning pitch.
Fear of hurting Robert Gordon's feelings was the one consideration that held me back from defying Dicky's mandate. Experience had taught me the best course to pursue with Dicky.
"If, as I suppose, you are referring to Mr. Gordon, it may interest you to know that I have not the faintest intention of going in to dinner with him," I retorted coolly. "Lillian wants to talk with him about South America, and I shall have your friend, Mr. Underwood, as my escort."
"Gee, how happy you'll be," sneered Dicky, but I could see that he was relieved at my information. "You're so fond of dear old Harry, aren't you?"
"To tell you the truth, I have to fight all the time against becoming too fond of him," I returned mockingly. "He can be dangerously fascinating, you know."
Dicky laughed in a way that showed me his brainstorm over Robert Gordon had been checked. But there was a startled look in his eyes which changed to a more speculative scrutiny before he moved away.
"Oh, old Harry's all right," he said. "He's my pal, and he never means anything, anyway." But I noticed that he said it as if he were trying to convince himself of the truth of his assertion.
When I told Harry Underwood that he was to take me in to dinner, and we were leading the way into the dining room, his brilliant black eyes looked down into mine mockingly, and he said:
"You see it is Fate. No matter how you struggle against it you cannot escape me."
"Do I look as if I were struggling?" I laughed back, and saw a sudden expression of bewilderment in his eyes, followed instantly by a flash of triumph.
Everything that was cattishly feminine in me leaped to life at that look in the eyes of the man whom I detested, whom I had even feared. I could read plainly enough in his eyes that he thought the assiduous flatteries he had always paid me were commencing to have their result, that I was beginning to recognize the dangerous fascination he was reputed to have for women of every station. I had a swift, savage desire to avenge the women he must have made suffer, to hurt him as before dinner he had wounded Lillian.