Earl Derr Biggers

“ She waited an instant, and then as Nina made no answer a deeper flush mounted the florid face.
“No doubt Richard tells you differently,” she went on tauntingly. “No doubt he tells you I haven't got a voice at all and pours over you all the compliments with which I used to be regaled. I know his sort. But it wont help him or you, either. The public prefers the devil and Herr Grimm knows it.”
“In that case your triumph will be complete,” Nina answered, quietly.
For a moment her rival measured her with angry admiration, then she shrugged her shoulders. ”

“ Nina Angus stared sightlessly before her. Her pulses were beating; a vision of peace and plenty, of a man freed from care, winning his way back to health and success rose before her. She saw the end of a long bitter struggle, the dawning of a new life. And then she saw Dicky. He came before her mental vision in the same moment that her eyes fell on the face opposite her own.
In the coarse painted features she read a greedy eagerness, an ugly triumph, and with a shock of recollection Nina remembered her husband's words, “Yes, a bad woman.” The cloak had fallen from the massive shoulders ”

“ The Veroni sat before the looking-glass in her dressing-room and smeared on the paint with a practiced hand. Her Carmen costume hung over the back of her chair and she herself was in a disorderly negligée. The man in the easy chair watched her with an insolent interest which did not seem in the least to disconcert her.
“I'll bet you'll wake them up to-night,” he remarked, as she leaned back, sighing with satisfaction. “You are a devil, Vi, if anybody is. I believe the thought that you are 'doing' your late lamented and his new partner is just like a spur to you. Women are queer creatures. ”

“ A small boy in a carefully brushed Eton suit stood on the threshold, looking from one to the other with a curious mixture of bewilderment and disappointment on his flushed face.
“I beg your pardon,” he stammered. “Perhaps there is some mistake—”
The man pulled himself up casually from his insolent lounging attitude. The Veroni drew her laces about her shoulders, and with a hasty, instinctive movement shifted the half-empty bottle behind the looking-glass.
“I expected a Mr. Angus,” she said, curtly. “Who are you?” ”

“ I'll make him a devil, too, if it's only to spite them—”
She stopped short, choking with inarticulate rage. Her cheeks were purple, her eyes blazing and there was something tigerish in her attitude which made her companion instinctively draw back.
“By Jove! You vixen!” he said, half laughing.
“Bah!” she said. “I am a fool to excite myself. It will spoil my voice. Give me that some of wine over there and open the door, there's a good boy. Someone is knocking.” ”

“ I shall bring him up like a prince—not in this beggary.”
“He shall live an honest life as his father has done,” Nina interrupted “That is all that matters.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that I wont give Dicky up to you—not for the whole world. We three must keep together.”
The half-unconscious echo of the boy's words gave her. the strength to face the uncontrolled passion which broke like a storm from the painted lips.
[Illustration: “It's awfully good of you to see me,"' he said]
The Veroni leaned across the table and shook her fist in the white face of her enemy. ”

“ And then bringing her clenched fist down on the table in a sudden gust of temper:
“What's there to wonder about? He drive me wrong with his goody-goody ways and his eternal preaching—and then they took the boy from me. They had no right to, but they took him and—” She tossed her head. “I hate that woman. No doubt she tells him lies about me—sets his heart against me—makes out I am the devil incarnate—”
“Well, aren't you?” ”

“ It was a rich tenor, but after the first few bars it broke and he sprang to his feet with a smothered exclamation of pain and irritation.
“My God, how long will it last?” he muttered despairingly. “How long must I be a helpless dependent? ”

“ For a moment she thought the clenched fist would have struck her, but with an effort the Veroni recovered herself. Contemptuously she began to gather up the rings and bracelets, but her lips were trembling with rage.
“As you like,” she said. “You can make your choice. If I do not hear from you by to-morrow afternoon, I shall out-sing you. By—I'll use every power on earth to make you impossible ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1959, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 64 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”