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."