Ida Larpent did not appear at the breakfast table.
Not for many years had she permitted herself to enjoy the luxury of tears. It was true that, since she had been flung on her own resources and faced with the disagreeable necessity of fighting her own battles, there had been many hours when tears would have helped her and made her more human. She had refused herself the indulgence for two reasons. She had no sympathy with what she called weakness and she shuddered at the idea of spoiling her appearance, even temporarily, by swollen lids. Her beauty was her only asset, her only stock-in-trade, and she preserved it with the eager and consistent care of a leading actress. But Nature had been too strong for her and she had capitulated like an ordinary woman for once. She had given herself up to an orgy of disappointment, wounded vanity, anger and bitterness, and after the storm was over had spent the rest of the night trying to see into the future, balancing her account with Fate. She was not in immediate need of money. Franklin's generosity had put her on her feet for the time being. She had paid her pressing bills and could face the remainder of the year without anxiety. But there were other years. What of them? Her small capital saved from the wreck that she had made of the fond and foolish Clive's affairs had gone. It was certain that she had miscalculated the sort of man that Franklin was. Not having been able to "get him" under what, with most men, would have been the most favorable circumstances, she saw so little chance of binding him to her and claiming some sort of protection that she came to the conclusion that she must give him up. She had played Venus to his Adonis and failed. It was not pride that made her retire from the game but the flat knowledge that he could do without her. Once more then she must go back into the Street of Adventure and lay her snares for a rich man, young or old. One satisfaction was here, and this was inconsistent with her materialism. It was better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Beatrix did appear at the breakfast table.
She too, had had a bad night. The shock of seeing Ida Larpent coming out of Franklin's room was awful. She sat for an hour chilled to the bone. After having loved no one but herself, and grown accustomed to the habit of merely touching a bell to procure the earth, it was startling enough suddenly to wake and find that the earth meant nothing to her without the man who did not seem to need her. In itself that was so much a shock that her whole perspective was shattered and out of focus. And even if Franklin only liked her as a sister, which gave her sufficient suffering, she loved him and had surrounded him with a girlish halo of idealism which of all things did not admit the possibility of such a visit as she had witnessed.
No one would have imagined who saw her and heard her laugh that morning that she had sat in the dark for many hours with life lying all smashed about her like a beautiful stained glass window through which a shell had burst. She joined Franklin and Malcolm at breakfast with her chin higher than ever, readier than usual with banter and mischief, the embodiment of youth, health and careless joy. Her pride came to her rescue and she intended to live up to Franklin's estimate of her courage to her last gasp. The difference between Ida Larpent and Beatrix was breeding.
She found the two men on the veranda outside the dining-room,—Franklin smoking his inevitable pipe.
"Good morning," she said. Her ringing voice turned them both around. "Malcolm, if you don't write a long and terrible poem on the early morning noises of the country, I shall. Even New York with the explosions in the subway and the rattle of motor buses is a city of the dead compared with this place. Cocks began to scream at each other before daybreak, hens have been brawling for hours and the gobble of turkeys under my window has been worse than an election meeting. Is Mrs. Larpent down yet?"
"We've not seen her," said Franklin.
"I'm ten minutes late, am I not?"
"About that, but it doesn't matter," said Malcolm.