Lucy and Phyllis and Frank moved hither and thither with jest and laughter. Fanny was there too, tampering amiably with the apparatus; and Darrell looked at her once with cold eyes, although, indeed, he had been a rare visitor at the studio.
Then all these phantoms faded, and she seemed to see another in their stead; a man, tall and strong, his face full of anger and sorrow—Lord Watergate, as he had been on that never-forgotten night. Then the anger and sorrow faded from his face, and she read there nothing but love—love for herself shining from his eyes.
Then she hid her face, ashamed.
What must he think of her? Perhaps that she scorned his gift, did not understand its value; had therefore withdrawn it in disdain.
Oh, if only she could tell him this:—that it was her very sense of the greatness of what he offered that had made her tremble, turn away, and reject it. One does not stretch out the hand eagerly for so great a gift.
She had told him not to return and he had taken her at her word. She was paying the penalty, which her sex always pays one way or another, for her struggles for strength and independence. She was denied, she told herself with a touch of rueful humour, the gracious feminine privilege of changing her mind.
Lord Watergate might have loved her more if he had respected her less, or at least allowed for a little feminine waywardness. Like the rest of the world, he had failed to understand her, to see how weak she was, for all her struggles to be strong.
She pushed back the hair from her forehead with the old resolute gesture. Well, she must learn to be strong in earnest now; the thews and sinews of the soul, the moral muscles, grow with practice, no less than those of the body. She must not sit here brooding, but must rise and fight the Fates.
Hitherto, perhaps, life had been nothing but failures, but mistakes. It was quite possible that the future held nothing better in store for her. That was not the question; all that concerned her was to fight the fight.