That brief moment of clear vision, of courage, had faded, as we know, even as it came. Now she dared not even look back upon it—dared not think at all.
Nothing had happened—nothing.
She fell back upon the unconsciousness, the unsuspiciousness of her neighbours. For them the world was not changed; how was it possible that great things had taken place?
She talked, moved about, and went through all the little offices of her life.
Now and then she repeated to herself the formulæ on which she had been brought up, which she had always accepted, as to the unseriousness, the unreality of the romantic, the sentimental in life.
Two or three days went by without any event to mark them. On the fourth, Bertie Lee-Harrison paid a call of interminable length, when Judith, with bright eyes and flushed cheeks, talked to him with unusual animation.
In her heart she was thinking: “Reuben will never come again, and what shall I do?”
But the very next day Reuben came.
It was of course impossible that he should stay away for any length of time.
The Leunigers were at tea in the drawing-room after dinner when the door was pushed open, and he entered, as usual, unannounced.