It had
been with the idea of augmenting the interests of the man whom she
believed to be her future lover, that she aided and urged on her
husband in his efforts to procure place and honour for his son-in-
law.
It was this idea which caused her to widen the breach between wife
and husband by every subtle means in her power; and it was when this
idea began to lose colour and substance and drop away among the
wreckage of past hopes, that the Baroness ceased to compliment and
began to taunt Preston Cheney with his dependence upon his father-in-
law, and to otherwise goad and torment the unhappy man. And Preston
Cheney grew into the habit of staying anywhere longer than at home.
During the last ten years the Baroness had seemed to abandon all
thoughts of gallant adventure. When the woman who has found life and
pleasures only in coquetry and conquest is forced to relinquish these
delights, she becomes either very devout or very malicious.
The Baroness was devoid of religious feelings, and she became,
therefore, the most bitter and caustic of cynical critics at heart,
though she guarded her expression of these sentiments from policy.
Yet to Mabel she expressed herself freely, knowing that her listener
enjoyed no conversation so much as that of gossip and criticism.
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