The end of it had been a precipitated parting at Colombo between Rose and her employers, and her marriage to Jim Aviolet.
It was there that romance had ended, and although the emotional climaxes had still come at intervals, they had almost all been painful ones.
Jim had been violently in love with his young wife for a short while, but from the first week of their marriage they had quarrelled, loudly and angrily. Neither had known the meaning of restraint.
Cecil had been a small bone of contention between them almost from the day of his birth.
If there had been emotion over Jim’s death—and Rose was incapable of viewing any personal equation from any but the emotional standpoint—it had been strangely mixed. There had been grief and shame and anger and remorse, but there had also been untold relief.
III
“I am very glad that Rose should form any friendship,” said Lady Aviolet, in a tone which savoured rather of resentment than of gladness.
The friendship in question had risen, with un-Aviolet-like rapidity, between Rose and the Lucians.
She had taken Cecil to tea there, and had been asked again.
“Please have the carriage at whatever time suits you, my dear,” said Lady Aviolet, who had frequently met the doctor’s sister, but had never called upon her, and would never have contemplated the possibility of doing so.