And she dropped a little insolent curtsy, and without a tremor, her nose exalted, brushed by my lady and stalked out of the room. At which Kate, having no word to say, nor courage to say it, fell against the wall, with a white face, and had a hard to-do to fight away an inclination to tears. CHAPTER XVI Mrs. Davis, conscious that her position was no longer a tenable one, and driven to naughty extremities by the three-sided investment which left her no alternative but to retreat--fighting--retired to her chamber to consider the course by which she could best inflict a Parthian stroke on the three enemies who, each from a different motive, were responsible for her coming ejectment. She contemplated nothing very terrible, it is true--only some exaggerated form of mischief in keeping with her little lawless, whimsical nature. She was not a tragic vengeance, and she nursed no very grievous resentment over a treatment which, she was perfectly aware, she had done much to deserve and little to be entitled to deprecate. She _had_ taken advantage of a temptation to play, especially of late, a game of her own rather than that of Hamilton, her employer and confederate; and she _had_ wasted her opportunities rather on personal enjoyment than in pursuance of any consistent effort to serve that gentleman’s designs. She knew all this, admitted her own shortcomings; and yet, though she had a physical liking for the rascal, she was not going to let him escape scot-free, without any endeavour to retaliate on him for his cool repudiation of her at the eleventh hour. She wished and intended him no great harm; only she felt it a moral obligation on herself to speak the last word in this comedy of misunderstandings. It was worth while to show him that his supposed easy command of women was subject to some little accidents of discomfiture and humiliation where he chose to presume too much in his dealings with the sharp-witted among them. After which she would be quite willing to call quits with him.