'We have no reason to suspect it in this case. I will not suspect it without definite grounds. In spite of everything let us be just.'
Lady Blixworth agreed to be just, with a rather weary air. 'Do give my best love to dear Lady Barmouth, and do send Mortimer to see me,' she implored her distressed visitor, when he took his leave.
The coast was clear. If she knew anything of the heart of man—as she conceived she did—the juncture of affairs was not unfavourable; ill-used lovers may sometimes be induced to seek softer distractions than Trans-Euphratic or other railways. She telegraphed to Audrey Pollington to cut short a visit which she was paying in the country. At any rate Audrey would not have ruined herself nor run away. In a spirit not over-complimentary either to Audrey or to Barslett, Lady Blixworth decided that they would just suit one another.
'The marriage arranged, &c., will not take place.' When a lady disappears by night, and sends no communication save a telegram, giving no address and asking that her luggage may be consigned to Charing Cross station, 'to be called for,' it is surely justifiable to insert that curt intimation of happiness frustrated or ruin escaped; the doubt in which light to look at it must be excused, since it represents faithfully the state of Mervyn's mind. He still remembered Trix as he had thought her, still had visions of her as what he had meant her to become; with the actual Trix of fact he was naturally in a fury of outraged self-esteem.
'I would have forgiven her,' he told Mrs. Bonfill, not realising at all that this ceremony, or process, was the very thing which Trix had been unable to face. 'In a little while we might have forgotten it, if she had shown proper feeling.'
'She's the greatest disappointment I ever had in my life,' declared Mrs. Bonfill. 'Not excepting even Beaufort Chance! I needn't say that I wash my hands of her, Mortimer.' Mrs. Bonfill was very sore; people would take advantage of Trix's escapade to question the social infallibility of her sponsor.
'We have no alternative,' he agreed gloomily.
'You mustn't think any more about her; you have your career.'
'I hate the gossip,' he broke out fretfully.
'If you say nothing, it will die away. For the moment it is unavoidable—you are so conspicuous.'