No steel blade could have cut more deeply than the closing sentence of Ethel's little note to Mr. Carden-Cox. Glad to think he was going to be so happy! Glad to believe that he would marry Fulvia! Nigel's heart sank.
The mere fact that she was able calmly to write such words to Mr. Carden-Cox seemed to him conclusive. He did not feel that he could have done it in her place, if he had cared one tithe as much as he cared now!
Of course not. But he was a man, and she was a woman. In his estimate of things, he forgot to allow for this fact.
Then her manner to him, when he had seen her last, the sudden coldness and indifference! Was it that she had just read by mistake the postscript meant for Daisy, whatever the postscript might have contained? Something undoubtedly had aroused her to the sense of a certain need to show Nigel that he must not think of her.
Tom Elvey!
Yes, that was it, no doubt. That was at the bottom of the tangle. Fulvia's words on the steam-yacht had been almost driven out of Nigel's mind by succeeding events, and by his first meeting afterward with Ethel; but now they returned in full strength.
Ethel had been so pleased and thankful, after the adventure, showing perhaps under excitement more warmth than she felt on consideration to be right. Probably she feared to mislead Nigel. As his friend and old playmate she would rejoice in his escape—perhaps also for Fulvia's sake, if she held the notion about him and Fulvia—but it was very evident that she wished Nigel now to understand the moderate nature of her feelings.
Tom Elvey, to wit!
Nigel sighed as he entered the Grange gates. Nobody was at hand to hear.