“A Miss Daintree. Rather a stylish-looking girl, handsome too. She’s staying with the Croftons.”
“Yes? Well, they’ll have a happy reunion and live happy ever after.”
Mrs Tarleton felt more relieved than ever. The light laughing badinage of the girl’s tone could never have been assumed, she decided. There was nothing between them, then.
But Hilda Clive was putting two and two together. She remembered Raynier’s absence of mind and unwonted depression the day they had set forth on their ride which had ended so tragically. This, then, was the news which had disconcerted him. The impending arrival of the girl to whom he was engaged gave him no pleasure—rather the reverse—and if so, why? The puzzle was no difficult one to piece together; indeed, to her perceptions, it constituted no puzzle at all.
Chapter Twenty Two.
At Mazaran.
Cynthia Daintree had heard of Raynier’s transfer immediately on landing, and had lost no time in proceeding to Mazaran, which move was facilitated by the fact that the friends with whom she had come out had relatives in the frontier station, to whom they duly passed her on, and with whom she was now staying.
She had received Raynier’s telegram at Aden. Her father had forwarded it, without comment, and although its burden caused her a little temporary annoyance it neither surprised nor disconcerted her, for of it she there and then resolved to take no notice at all. More than ever now she congratulated herself that the angry letter she had been on the point of sending him after he had left her so brutally—as she put it—had remained unsent; more than ever did she rejoice that no further communication had passed between them, and that therefore he could claim no formal release. What had passed between them she would choose to regard as a mere tiff, which the magnanimity of her disposition moved her unconditionally to condone, and this she would give out if necessary. For the rest, she reckoned on his easy-going nature, which, by reason of his extraordinary forbearance as regarded herself, she had come to regard as weak, and despised accordingly. There was no other woman in the case, she was sure of that, otherwise he might have turned restive. As it was, she would have things all her own way, and he would yield unconditionally.