"How handsome he is!" he mentally exclaimed as he studied those bright faces. "He is dressed in the very latest style, too, and I wonder where he gets the cash to sport a box? And Mollie--she is just too lovely for anything!" A shaft of pain went quivering through him from head to foot as he feasted his eyes upon her beauty.
"There is no one like her--and I love her in spite of everything," he went on, choking back something very like a sob, "but, of course, she must positively hate me now. What a fool I was not to have made sure that she was a stranger before I spoke to her that night!"
These were some of the thoughts which thronged Philip Wentworth's brain as he sat and watched the young couple, paying very little heed to the brilliant prima donna on the stage.
The footlights were bright enough to enable him to see their every movement--almost their every look, and he was quick to observe Faxon's tender glance and manner whenever he addressed his fair companion; while Mollie's varying color, the glad light in her eyes, whenever they met his, and the happy smiles that rippled over her lips were simply maddening to his jealous heart, and aroused a terrible fear within him.
"By Jove!" he said to himself, a cold chill creeping over him. "I believe, upon my soul that there is an understanding between them, and it would certainly cap the climax of the worst I ever dreamed if he should win her."
He could not tell whether Mollie was conscious of his and his mother's presence or not. Of course, he knew that the occupants of one box were just as conspicuous as those in another, and two or three times he had seen her lift her gold-mounted glass and sweep the house. But if she had seen them she gave no sign of the fact.
He wondered if she would preserve the strict letter of the sentence which she had pronounced upon him the last time they met, if he should happen to encounter her again, and he was soon to have that question settled beyond all doubt.
When the opera was over and while Mollie and Clifford were waiting at the entrance of the theater for their carriage, Philip and his mother came upon them suddenly.
Mrs. Temple, finished woman of the world though she was, was taken aback a trifle, and the warm color flushed to her face. Yet she greeted Mollie with something of her old-time cordiality, for the girl was so exquisitely lovely that her heart involuntarily warmed toward her.