Such women simply didn't care what stood in their way.

If they took a fancy to a man, what did it matter whether he were married or no?
The poor girl stood there, seething with passion, pluming herself on a knowledge of the world which enabled her to 'see through' these abominable great ladies.
But if she didn't know, if Bella Morrison's tale were true, then it was John, on whom Phoebe's rage returned to fling itself with fresh and maddened bitterness.

That he should have thus utterly ignored her in his new surroundings--have never said a word about her to the landlady with whom he had lodged for nearly a year, or to any of his new acquaintances and friends--should have deliberately hidden the very fact of his marriage--could a husband give a wife any more humiliating proof of his indifference, or of her insignificance in his life?
[Illustration: _Phoebe's Rival_] Meanwhile the picture possessed her more and more.

Closer and closer she came, her chest heaving.

Was it not as though John had foreseen her coming, her complaints--and had prepared for her this silent, this cruel answer?
The big picture of course was gone in to the Academy, but his wife, if she came, was to see that he could not do without Madame de Pastourelles.