Frank was very kind to her in a certain measure. He liked her, but it was a very selfish liking. He did not like to hear her talk about leaving. He liked her there, and he was almost as much her jailer as Mrs. Laylor. He took her out to all manner of dissipation, theatres, saloons, late suppers, balls and frolics, in which strong drink--not Athalia Morgan--acted as wild a part as the wildest. But he offered her no means of escape. She began to have a sort of fondness for Frank. What woman can avoid liking one who is devoted to her? But this devotion to one was not what Mrs. Laylor wished. It was not what brought the most money to her iron chest. She would like to negotiate the charms of Athalia to some rich libertine every day, whenever she could meet with one fool enough to pay her well for her influence with the "young widow."
Among the most determined of her suitors, was a young Frenchman, who used every art which he knew well how to use with words and money, to win Athalia's favor. As a last resort, he pledged a splendid diamond ring to Mrs. Laylor, if she would accomplish what he could not.
When all other arts fail to work ruin and misery in a woman's mind, there is one left, one which concentrates all the power of all the lies of the father of deception. It is jealousy.
There is a little story in "Othello," about the arts of a villain, to produce mischief by that power. It is nothing compared with the villainy and lies invented to produce jealousy between Frank and Athalia, so as to let in the Frenchman, and win that ring.
Villainy is too often successful in this life. It was in this case. Jealousy, a feeling of revenge, drives more women to infidelity towards those they love, than all other causes.
It did its perfect work with Athalia, and then the fiend who had accomplished the work, laughed at her, and told her how she had been fooled, thinking it would have the usual effect, to make her careless of what she did in future. It had an entirely different effect upon Athalia. It was this that produced the state of mind that Adelaide called the dumps, the blues, and the tears that Stella saw her shed. Stella had told her mother much that Athalia told her, much that the child did not understand, but the mother did, for she knew how girls were inveigled into those houses, and kept there as prisoners.