Jasper laughed with some bitterness.
"She doesn't like me now," sighed Jane, but the feelings Betty had
hurt were connected with a later development so that they turned her
mood and brought her to a more normal dejection. She was no longer a
caged beast, she had temporarily forgotten her bars.
"I think you're wrong," said Jasper doubtfully. "Betty does like you.
She's merely busy and preoccupied. I've been neglected myself."
Jane gave him a far too expressive look. It was as though she had
said, "You don't fancy that she cares for you?"
Jasper flushed and blinked his long, Oriental eyes.
"It's a pity you haven't a lover, Jane," he said.
She had walked over to the window, and his speech, purposely a trifle
cruel and insulting, did not make her turn.
"You're angry," she said. "You'd better go home. I'm not in good humor
myself."
At which he laughed his murmuring, musical laugh and prepared to leave
her.
"I have a great deal of courage," he said, getting into his coat, "to
bring a wild-cat here, chain her up, and tease her--eh?"
"You think you have me chained?" Her tone was enraged and scornful. "I
can snap your flimsy little tether and go."
She wheeled upon him. She looked tall and fierce and free.
"No, no," he cried with deprecating voice and gesture. "You are making
Mr. Luck's fortune and mine, not to mention your own. You mustn't
break your chains. Get used to them. We all have to, you know. It's
much the best method."
"I shall never get used to this life, never. It just--somehow--isn't
mine."
"Perhaps when you meet Mr. Luck, he'll be able to reconcile you."
Her expressive face darkened. "When shall I meet Mr. Luck?"
"Soon, I hope. Mr. Melton knows just when to announce the authorship."
"I hate Mr. Luck more than any one in the world," she said in a low,
quiet voice.
Jasper stared. "Hate him! Why, in the name of savagery, should you
hate him?"
"Oh, I can't explain. But you'd better keep us apart. How came he to
write 'The Leopardess'?"
"I shall leave him to tell you that. Good-night."