And now she was thankful that it had happened. The encounter had fortified her confidence in her own methods and given her a new proof of her power to surmount obstacles by smiling them away. She had literally smiled Arthur out of the house, when some women, in a similar emergency, would have made a scene, or stood on their dignity. Dignity! Hers consisted, more than ever, in believing the best of every one, in persuading herself and others that to impute evil was to create it, and to disbelieve it was to prevent its coming into being. Those were the Scientific Initiate's very words: "We manufacture sorrow as we do all the other toxins." How grateful she was to him for that formula! And how light and happy it made her feel to know that she had borne it in mind, and proved its truth, at so crucial a moment! She looked back with pity at her own past moods of distrust, her wretched impulses of jealousy and suspicion, the moments when even those nearest her had not been proof against her morbid apprehensions...
How absurd and far away it all seemed now! Jim was coming back the day after tomorrow. Lita and the baby were going home to him. And the day after that they would all be going back to town; and then the last touches would be put to the ceremonial of the Cardinal's reception. Oh, she and Powder would have their hands full! All of the big silver-gilt service would have to be got out of the safety vaults and gone over... Luckily the last reports of Mrs. Bruss's state were favourable, and no doubt Maisie would be back as usual... Yes, life was really falling into its usual busy and pleasurable routine. Rest in the country was all very well; but rest, if overdone, became fatiguing...
She found herself in bed, the lights turned off, and sleep descending on her softly.
Before it held her, she caught, through misty distances, the sound of her husband's footfall, the opening and shutting of his door, and the muffled noises of his undressing. Well ... so he was back ... and Lita ... silly Lita ... no harm, really... Just as well they hadn't met poor Arthur... Everything was all right ... the Cardinal...
XXX
PAULINE sat up suddenly in bed. It was as if an invisible hand had touched a spring in her spinal column, and set her upright in the darkness before she was aware of any reason for it.
No doubt she had heard something through her sleep; but what? She listened for a repetition of the sound.
All was silence. She stretched out her hand to an onyx knob on the table by her bed, and instantly the face of a miniature clock was illuminated, and the hour chimed softly; two strokes followed by one. Half-past two—the silentest hour of the night; and in the vernal hush of Cedarledge! Yet certainly there had been a sound—a sharp explosive sound... Again! There it was: a revolver shot ... somewhere in the house...
Burglars?