She had been Hippisley's mistress for three
years.
When Lena asked for proofs of the incredible assertion she had _her_
letters to show.
Oh, it was her moment. She must have been looking out for it, saving up
for it, all those years; gloating over her exquisite secret, her return
for all the slighting and ignoring. That was what had made her
poisonous, the fact that Lena hadn't reckoned with her, hadn't thought
her dangerous, hadn't been afraid to leave Hippisley with her, the
rich, arrogant contempt in her assumption that Ethel would "do" and her
comfortable confidences. It made her amorous and malignant. It
stimulated her to the attempt.
I think she must have hated Lena more vehemently than she loved
Hippisley. She couldn't, _then_, have had much reliance on her power to
capture; but her hatred was a perpetual suggestion.
Supposing--supposing she were to try and take him?
Then she had tried.
I daresay she hadn't much difficulty. Hippisley wasn't quite so fine
and fastidious as Lena thought him. I've no doubt he liked Ethel's
unwholesomeness, just as he had liked the touch of morbidity in Lena.
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