"N. H." looked round him suddenly. "Oh!" he exclaimed, "but—she has gone!"
His surprise was comical, but the expression on the face changed in his rapid way at once. "I remember now. Your Lady Gleeson came," he added, a touch of gentle sadness in his voice, "I gave her pain. You had told me. I forgot——"
"You did well," Fillery commented with smiling approval as though the entire scene was known to him, "you did very well. It is a pity, only, that she left too soon. If she had stayed for your worship—your wind and fire might have helped——"
"N. H." shook his head. "There is nothing I can work with," he replied. "She is empty. She destroys only. Why," he added, "does she walk upright?"
But Lady Gleeson held very different views upon the recent scene. This magnificent young male she had put in his place, but she had not finished with him. No such being had entered her life before. She was woman enough to see he was unusual. But he was magnificent as well, and, secretly, she loved his grand indifference.
She left the house, however, with but an uncertain feeling that the honours were with her. Two days without a word, a sign, from her would bring him begging to her little feet.
But the "begging" did not come. The bell was silent, the post brought no humble, passionate, abandoned letter. She fumed. She waited. Her husband, recently returned to London and immensely preoccupied with his concessions, her maid too, were aware that Lady Gleeson was impatient. The third, the fourth day came, but still no letter.
Whereupon it occurred to her that she had possibly gone too far. Having left him on his knees, he was, perhaps, still kneeling in his heart, even prostrate with shame and disappointment. Afraid to write, afraid to call, he knew not what to do. She had evidently administered too severe a lesson. Her callers, meanwhile, convinced her that she was irresistible. There was no woman like her in the world. She had, of course, been too harsh and cruel with this magnificent and innocent youth from the woods and mountains....
Thus it was that, on the fourth day, feeling magnanimous and generous, big-hearted too, she wrote to him. It would be foolish, in any case, to lose him altogether merely for a moment's pride: