Chapter 18
Looking back through the space of only three years to this particular period of my life, I can remember distinctly the singular expression of Lucio's face when I told him that Sibyl Elton had accepted me. His sudden smile gave a light to his eyes that I had never seen in them before,—a brilliant yet sinister glow, strangely suggestive of some inwardly suppressed wrath and scorn. While I spoke he was, to my vexation, toying with that uncanny favourite of his, the 'mummy-insect,' —and it annoyed me beyond measure to see the repulsive pertinacity with which the glittering bat-like creature clung to his hand.
"Women are all alike," he said with a hard laugh, when he had heard my news. "Few of them have moral force enough to resist that temptation of a rich marriage."
I was irrita
