“So there are. But this is a local ‘latest,’ and touches a nearish neighbour. What do you think of Lamont?”
“I never do think of him,” she answered, even more acidly.
“Well, he’s coming home. His place is being done up, and they’ve got people working at it night and day. He’s not only made a big name for himself as a fighter, but he appears to have struck a gold mine into the bargain, and now he’s cleared off all the encumbrances and is having the place put into tip-top order. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t think anything of it either way. In fact the matter has no earthly interest for me whatever,” snapped Violet, with her nose in the air.
“Not? That’s lucky. You did make a mess of your chances there, Violet, and no mistake.”
“Did I? I don’t know that I agree, and at any rate it’s all ancient history, and like most ancient history rather flat and stale and humdrum. Anyway the whole subject has lost all interest for me.”
Squire Courtland looked at his daughter, with a mischievous pucker round his eyes.
“What instinctive liars all women are,” he was saying to himself.
Violet made some excuse, and took herself out of his presence. She had to, or her temper would have got the upper hand: result—a stormy scene, recrimination on her part; cold, withering sarcasm on that of her father; then rancour and bitterness for days. She knew he had never forgiven her for breaking off her engagement with Lamont; less, that she had done so than her manner of doing it. And the worst of it was, he seemed determined never to allow her to forget it; and now the man was coming back—coming to settle down at his ancestral home, almost, so to say, next door to them. And—he was bringing with him a bride.
He had been quick to console himself, she reflected, her lips curling with bitterness—oh yes, quite quick. Only two years. Two years to this very day. But two years mean a great deal to a man of action; and following his career in the newspapers, as she had done, this one, whom she had thrown over, was very much a man of action indeed. For herself—well, her intimates had noticed a very considerable change in Violet Courtland. She had gone through her seasons and social functions, but somehow she had done so listlessly. All her adorers, whom formerly she had patted and made sit up and fetch and carry, she now snubbed ruthlessly, including more than one eligible; and what had formerly afforded her keen enjoyment she now went through perfunctorily.