He sat between two European beauties, and, pale and red by turns, shunned the eyes of both, and looked down at his plate in a cold sweat of humiliation, mortification and shame.
The iron passed through Mrs.Woffington's soul.

So! this was a villain, too, the greatest villain of all--a hypocrite! She turned very faint, but she was under an enemy's eye, and under a rival's; the thought drove the blood back from her heart, and with a mighty effort she was Woffington again.

Hitherto her liaison with Mr.Vane had called up the better part of her nature, and perhaps our reader has been taking her for a good woman; but now all her dregs were stirred to the surface.

The mortified actress gulled by a novice, the wronged and insulted woman, had but two thoughts; to defeat her rival--to be revenged on her false lover.

More than one sharp spasm passed over her features before she could master them, and then she became smiles above, wormwood and red-hot steel below--all in less than half a minute.
As for the others, looks of keen intelligence passed between them, and they watched with burning interest for the _denouement._ That interest was stronger than their sense of the comicality of all this (for the humorous view of what passes before our eyes comes upon cool reflection, not often at the time).
Sir Charles, indeed, who had foreseen some of this, wore a demure look, belied by his glittering eye.