AN AMBITIOUS MAN




CHAPTER I



Preston Cheney turned as he ran down the steps of a handsome house on
"The Boulevard," waving a second adieu to a young woman framed
between the lace curtains of the window. Then he hurried down the
street and out of view. The young woman watched him with a gleam of
satisfaction in her pale blue eyes. A fine-looking young fellow,
whose Roman nose and strong jaw belied the softly curved mouth with
its sensitive darts at the corners; it was strange that something
warmer than satisfaction did not shine upon the face of the woman
whom he had just asked to be his wife.

But Mabel Lawrence was one of those women who are never swayed by any
passion stronger than worldly ambition, never burned by any fires
other than those of jealousy or anger. Her meagre nature was truly
depicted in her meagre face. Nature is ofttimes a great lair and a
cruel jester, giving to the cold and vapid woman the face and form of
a sensuous siren, and concealing a heart of volcanic fires, or the
soul of a Phryne, under the exterior of a spinster. But the old dame
had been wholly frank in forming Miss Lawrence. The thin, flat chest
and narrow shoulders, the angular elbows and prominent shoulder-
blades, the sallow skin and sharp features, the deeply set, pale blue
eyes, and the lustreless, ashen hair, were all truthful exponents of